Enhancing Rural Girls' Education and Wellbeing

The areas of intervention of this project are located in Kyangwali Hoima District, in the rural areas. People living in these areas are in condition of extreme poverty and consequently they have no possibility to afford the costs of basic needs, such as shelter, education, healthcare and food.

There is a high number of children and young women who have lost their loved ones due to HIV/AIDS. Some grandmothers are caretakers to children orphaned due to HIV/AIDS and cannot provide for them all the basic needs and necessities.

The majority of the families have an average number of six children per household and they struggle to survive by doing odd jobs. Therefore, all the family incomes are basically oriented to first needs and in most cases they cannot afford the cost of school fees for the children. In the case of a family that can afford the cost of the school fees, most of them don’t have money to purchase school materials, as exercise books and texts. As a result most of these poor families choose very simple and poor but affordable schools for their children. Children from poor families attend schools that have no libraries or opportunities for research. Yet these very children are examined together with the rest of the better off children who have access to good schools with all the necessary facilities.

For the children from these poor families who succeed to be in school, continuing with the education is still a big challenge this is because many of them drop out (stop) due to other reasons such as family needs. For example many girls stop going to school in order to take care of the sick parent at home or boys to do some work to support the home. By the time such a child is free to go back to school it is no longer possible to continue with the regular schools. The only options are entrepreneurs and vocational skills training. However the, cost of entrepreneurs and vocational skills training, that could be considered as a middle solution between work and school, are still beyond the means of many poor families living in these rural areas.

Why supply seedlings to the community and especially women.

Through increasing quality and access to affordable education for poor children, and skills training for poor youth and women, this project gives a concrete possibility of social and economic empowerment to the young women of tomorrow and to all their families. Therefore, in this project with support from partners and friends we able to provide seedlings to 18 women and 16 men. When they practice agriculture they will have an increase on their household income and be able to support their children have access to better education, nutrition and hence transformed lives.

On my own behalf and the community, we extend our sincere appreciation for your support our partners and friends through GlobalGiving for enabling Hope for children Health Foundation create a difference in the lives of people in the rural community through the services we are offering like health, education and economic empowerment.

• Project Report (PDF)