Supporting vulnerable children in Uganda's slums

Protecting - Providing Safe Spaces for Kids in Kampala

In the past quarter we have continued our projects which serve the community on a regular basis, such as our Saturday Kids Clubs and our Football project. Through these projects we can also identify those most in need of our support through working with community leaders to establish projects to aid communities, increase social cohesion, offer safe spaces for children to meet and play, and provide for immediate needs.

• 858 children regularly attended our weekly Saturday Kids Clubs
• 59 boys are currently attending the football project, where 48 field training sessions were conducted
• 104 girls counselling sessions were conducted during which 1,392 period products were distributed

Educating - Opportunities for Out of School Kids

Our Educating Programme gives children the opportunity to learn through receiving a regular, high quality education. This includes our Encouraging Education project, which offers a free education to 3-6 year olds across 3 communities in Kampala. It also includes our Child Sponsorship Project, which matches children with Child Sponsors who pay their school fees.

• Our Encouraging Education project now supports 90 children, with every child receiving nutritious meals daily
• 5 new children were enrolled onto the Child Sponsorship project (these new sponsorships now mean we have reached our target for our 10 for 10, meaning a generous supporter will now sponsor a further 10 children!)

At our Encouraging Education project, an end of term assessment was held for all of the children. This assessed the subjects they had been studying throughout the term, but it also took into account things like social habits, cleanliness, attendance, responsibility and punctuality. The children have made great progress at all three centres! All three centres were restocked with learning materials, study resources, cleaning products, food and cooking fuel.

Skilling - Creating Sustainable Livelihoods

• 45 students graduated from the Tailoring and Knitting course, and 52 new students were enrolled - 15 as knitting students and 37 as tailoring students.
• 39 Tailoring and Knitting students attended business training.
• 12 students have been undergoing carpentry training.

The Business Training was held by three alumni of the project. All three of these alumni each run their own tailoring and knitting businesses which have allowed them to significantly increase their incomes.

Here is what one of the graduates from the 14th cohort had to say about her experience on the project:

“I am very glad that I am graduating today. How I joined the project four months ago is not how I am living today, I had never used a tailoring machine but right now I am able to make a shirt, skirt, short and dresses of different fashions. On top of that, I am extremely happy for empowering me with a machine. I was worried of forgetting the skill since I have no machine at home to keep practising. But now I have a machine, I will keep practising my skill as I also make money, save and buy a big industrial machine” *Primrose (*name changed)