Retain Orphan Girl Children in Schools in Uganda

Summary
Retention of orphan girl children project in Pallisa, Budaka and Kibuku districts – Eastern Uganda aims at empowering 80 widows in commercial vegetable growing to improve their family’s nutrition and income to pay school meals and scholastic materials for 1450 school going orphan girl children between 8-18years. The 80 widows have been empowered with modern knowledge and skills in vegetable growing and provided with vegetable seeds, pesticides and spray pumps as a sustainability means for the project. This is the July to November report and it is located on Globalgiving website and our website www.kagumudevelopment.org . The report clearly comprises of the progress of the project for the quarter ended November, 2017 with financial support from all stakeholders.

Current status of the project:
The following were done in the last quarter:

1. Distributed cassava cuttings from the previous beneficiaries after multiplication to 10 widows who were given hands on farm training in cassava growing.
2. Monitored the roles of the trained 50 community leaders on Child Protection practices to reduce on child abuse and child rights violations in the community.
3. Monitored the trained 50 widows on less energy intensive technologies to reduce pressure on trees.

Challenges

1. The organization is faced with limited funding to support widows to undergo commercial vegetables production in order to maximize production and sustain the buyers demand
2. Some widows lack land and therefore, the organization hires land for them and they practice collective farming.
3. Rape and defilement of orphan girls which increases the risk of these girls being infected with HIV/AIDS hence early pregnancies therefore there is need to mainstream child protection activities in our project.

Recommendation
we submit our request to all development partners to extend their giving hand to the project to facilitate the implementation of this project in order to improve the social- economic power of the widow led households as this is the only viable project in terms of providing quick returns.

Testimony from one beneficiary
This testimony is from Esther who is the daughter of the late Mbulachalo of Kadama Town Council in Kibuku district, Eastern Uganda. Esther is 14 years old in Senior two. Esther received books, a set, pens, and a new uniform. Esther tells our project staff that, ‘I am going to study because KADO takes care of my educational, they contribute to my school fees, buy for me scholastic materials among others’. The story explains the work of KADO in relation to our project of retaining orphan girl children in schools project.