Empower AIDS Widows - Save a Community

RURAL WOMEN EMPOWERMENT NETWORK (RWEN)

26^TH/07/2018

REPORT FOR WOMEN FOR THE MONTH OF JULY 2018

This report covers activities of the 4 groups

RW Group                                No of women

RWEN                                            135

TORORO                                          96

BUGIRI                                             65

AMONI                                             52

OUR ACTIVITIES

Care for the elderly women.

Care for OVC/ child headed families

HIV/AIDS – long time survival skills

Drama/HIV/AIDS

Tree planting

Crafts making

Hair dressing

Agriculture

Health

Day care centres

Home visits

Poultry

Heifer

Piggery

Local goat rearing

Referrals

Care for the elderly women

We have maintained this care for the elderly and one of our group leaders and elderly we are following up her condition and on the 24^th July 2018, we visited her when she was admitted and we paid for her medical bills but she is still weak.

We have also kept on providing posho and beans to the elderly.

Care for OVCs and child headed families.

 We make sure they go to school and cater for their mid day meals, we also provide scholastic materials, cover school fees top ups, fees and uniforms.

The child headed homes are always visited and provided with food.

For the HIV/AIDS positive children, each has a counselor member from the groups to visit and take care of them. Right now we provide Septrine for them which was lacking at their centres.

Drama group / Long term survival skills

This is our tool for sensitization on HIV/AIDS through music dance and drama in our centres.

Tree planting

Every group member has to plant trees. It is now considered a crime for a group member to have no tree planted.

Crafts making

Bugiri group is well known for this activity of making mats, baskets and are very good for decorations.

Hair dressing

This is mostly practiced within RWEN group and most of our members that were trained in hair dressing have made their own projects on small saloons scale.

Agriculture

We plant beans, simsim (sesame seed), maize, ground nuts, sweet potatoes, sorghum and millet. Green vegetables have been planted to cater for meals; Dodo, Sukuma, pumpkin leaves have mostly been grown.

The season has been fairly good and the yields are promising.

Health /HIV/AIDS

Our people have kept healthy and strong due to the long term survival skills studied on health we have provided to them in workshops of Linde, the great woman of Zimbabwe in Harare.

Day care centres

Our day care centres help children and the youths. We provide porridge and mid day meals, beans and posho are also provided.

Home visits

It is an ongoing activity for all groups.

Poultry (Local)

This is carried out on small scale for every group member in the four groups. It helps members to earn a small leaving in their homes when they sell eggs and hens.

Heifer project

Government Wealth creation programme has boosted RWEN group with one heifer for milk and it was given to one of the members of RWEN.

Piggery

Some of our members do the project of piggery and it is doing well though in small numbers because most of them died.

Local Goats

Most members practice local goat rearing but on a small scale.

Referrals

We have referred 10 youths to PEFO for tailoring, computer studies and more hair dressing from RWEN.

Challenges

• Septrine. We have already given septrine to the members for 3 months but expecting to end this July. Unfortunately our members in RWEN group may not get septrine in August because they are not under TASO. If the problem proceeds, there will be no septrine for RWEN HIV/AIDS positive members.

Developments

• The yield for the crops grown like maize, beans and green vegetables was promising the previous season, so are the crops not mentioned
• We have been able to give septrine to HIV/AIDS positive members of the group.

Recommendations    

1. Septrine supply should go on for members not under TASO but in ART clinics under hospitals,
2. If funds are available we request that more maize and beans should be bought and stored for the day care centres because the cost is still low (Beans – 2000/= and maize – 600/= Uganda shillings).
3. We still request for transport means for exchange visits and tours for OVCs and women.

Compiled by:

Teopista

Chairperson RWEN