Empower Girls in Rural Uganda

Empower Girls in Rural Uganda is a project started to empower vulnerable girls and teenage mothers in our community in the rural shores of Lake Victoria, through our five thematic programs listed below:

- The Girls' Education Program
- Mental Health
- Community Outreach Program
- Music, Dance, and Drama (MDD)
- Self-sustenance Program (Sewing Project)

However, the major emphasis is mainly on three programs: mental health, sewing, and community outreach.

Mental health is significant to our project because it helps the girls change how they view their lives and past traumas.

Mental health sessions are conducted by our counselors and our international therapist partners. Girls always share their pressing challenges, and the group responds by supporting them accordingly.
The aim is to help girls with issues so that their past traumas do not rule their present lives.
These sessions have helped our community girls greatly and restored hope to the hopeless. We have girls who wanted to commit suicide and take their lives as a solution to their challenges, others wanted to leave their homes just to go to the streets to sell their bodies for survival!

One of our girls, Gertrude,18, has this to say:
"Before I joined Let The Girl Be-Uganda, I was living with my mother at a farm estate where she was working as a gardener. Life wasn't easy as we had to work a lot. But the good thing we could get free food and shelter at the estate.
Life changed for the worse when the court ruled that the estate be taken away from our boss and given to his petitioner.
As we struggled to look for where to go and what to eat, my mother decided that I leave school because she no longer had an income to support my education. I went with her to a rural community in the village and started living with her elder sister.
While there, one day, my mother, together with her sister, told me that the next day we would host an important visitor! They bought me a new dress so that I look smart when the visitor comes.
The next day, the visitor came with two men and a woman, whom I later came to know was his sister. My mother, together with my aunt, introduced the man as my husband and that I was going with her that very day.
I felt betrayed by my mother, whom I thought we were together struggling for a better life!
I didn't say anything, but only ran to my friend Joan, who connected me with Let The Girl Be-Uganda, where I am now as one of the girl leaders.
I shared my story with fellow girls who welcomed me and encouraged me to attend their mental health sessions.
I'm so grateful to Let The Girl Be, because they have really changed my life and restored my lost hope!
I'm now looking towards fulfilling my dream of becoming a successful farmer after my education.

Our sewing training program is also doing great! Girls do sewing training that helps them to acquire some basic knowledge to make some items from different fabrics.
Last year, they had several online sewing workshops with our friend and partner, "Emilie" in the US, who taught them to make simple items like children's shirts.
They can also make other clothing items, like bags.
The major challenge for our sewing program is lack of funds to hire a teacher to handle the girls' sewing training to teach them to acquire good skills that can help them to acquire skills that can help them to earn a living and sustain themselves, as one of the girls, Gloria, 17, says:
"The training has inspired me to do tailoring after my Ordinary level education. My dream is to become a fashion designer."

I'm happy to report that since we started in 2022, the following changes have been registered in our community as a result of our work:

- Decreased number of girls dropping out of school
- Decreased number of teenage mothers without husbands
- Few registered cases of domestic violence against girls
- A big number of teenage girls working as home and bar maids left these exploitative jobs, and went back to school.

Currently, the project has 15 vulnerable girls who are registered under our programs. They are all students, but always meet on Saturdays for our programs, like music, dance, and drama, making crafts, sewing, and mental health sessions.
We also meet on Wednesdays during school holidays.
On these meeting days, we prepare lunch for the girls because our programs begin at 10:00 am and end at 5:00 pm.

We're so grateful to our donors and volunteers, both local and international, for the support they always give us! Without them, we wouldn't have reached where we are now.