Empowering girls in Uganda for success
Girls in the Rongoro community group, Uganda.
Photo: FDNC
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Three hundred girls, ages 12-24, are becoming self-reliant through access to education, leadership, and income-generating skills thanks to support from Church World Service and local partner, the Foundation for Development of Needy Communities (FDNC) in Mbale, Uganda.
About 70% of the girls in the project area do not attend school -- some of the girls having dropped out of school as a result of poverty and/or loss of parents or guardians to HIV and AIDS -- and instead girls often spend 80% more time than boys doing domestic tasks. FDNC has enrolled the 300 girls in school and provided basic needs like uniforms and shoes. Twenty-seven tree nursery beds in 27 communities are providing trees for planting, trees for environmental protection, fodder for animals, and wood for fuel. And, 1,200 fuel saving stoves have been constructed that use less firewood, while cooking food faster.
These measures are working to ensure that the participants spend less time fetching firewood or cooking in unhealthy, smoke-filled environments, and instead focus more on their education and income-generating programs. Animal shelters have been constructed and the services of a veterinary doctor retained to help with training and vaccination of animals purchased for the participants for income generating activities.