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Eastern Uganda Women’s Empowerment Program

women and youth empowerment

The goal of this project is to empower women in five select communities to acquire knowledge and skills necessary to live improved, self-reliant livelihoods through specific entrepreneurship/micro-enterprise development, capacity-building and training programs and advocacy campaigns that enforce women’s rights awareness and female empowerment. Activities under this project revolve around three main themes, i.e. Entrepreneurship, Capacity-building, Advocacy and Training.
• Under Entrepreneurship, this ongoing program provides revolving loans scheme to enable women engage in income generating activities such as animal husbandry, poultry keeping, brick making, mushroom growing etc. Entrepreneurship activities will include poultry, brick making, mushroom growing, animal husbandry etc; this activity empowers women with knowledge and skills in business management so that they can engage in initiatives that will increase their household incomes. Disbursement of capital seed which will lead to development of a revolving fund and loans provision to women. This activity is intended to address the lack of financial resources by women who desire to engage in business activities to increase their incomes. Each group will have a group activity and individual activities. We will continue to encourage the groups to start up a group activity (small enterprise) that will help generate incomes for running of the groups, this is also partly to encourage solidarity undertakings and social support to each members.

• Under capacity-building, we engage in activities that increase women’s business knowledge; marketing of their produce, training in business and entrepreneurship skills. The trainings range from small business, poultry keeping, brick making, mushroom growing, fish culture, horticulture/organic farming, animal husbandry etc. These programs include intensive trainings in entrepreneurship skills and business management in rural environments. Additionally, we focus on exchange visits with beneficiaries in order to exchange successful business practices and skills with neighboring communities. We will continue carrying out Entrepreneurship trainings; business planning which involves development of business plans, record keeping, training in animal husbandry, brick making, poultry making, horticulture, mushroom growing, health, hygiene/sanitation trainings and HIV/AIDS, and gender issues. This activity will equip beneficiaries with knowledge and skills on several issues pertaining to healthy living such as accessing clean water (methods), sanitation, nutrition, and hygiene because a healthy person is more productive. We will organize Peer learning exchange visits between and/or to successful women’s groups nationally and in the Eastern region (particularly Kenya) to help women in the five supported communities learn from similar or unique initiatives that have succeeded elsewhere, with the goal of replicating and building upon these ideas in their particular communities. The visits and tours will also help build the capacity of beneficiaries’ women groups in various development initiatives.

• Under the advocacy program, we build capacity of women to make informed decisions and know their rights so they can speak for themselves. Through this programming focus we do empower women to have a voice especially in financial decisions, thereby increasing their productivity, power, and status in the community. There are awareness seminars that cover a range of topics, all with the goal of empowering women to assume a pivotal role in decision-making in their homes and communities. These trainings focus on women’s rights seminars, women’s roles in decision-making, sexual reproductive health rights, and women’s role in development. This education creates self-awareness among women so as to exploit their potential to take an active role in improving their livelihoods and the development of their communities. It will further help them to lobby and advocate for their rights and the rights of girl-children in all supported communities.