Support 225 adolescent mothers to thrive in Uganda

Act4Africa is celebrating our 20th Year in November, and you are invited to celebrate with us! 

We would like to personally invite you to our virtual celebration on Saturday 20th November at 12pm GMT via Zoom. Our 20th celebration with a virtual tour of Uganda, will bring our community from across the world together to reflect and celebrate all we have achieved. We are excited to bring you something a little different this year, and we hope that you can join us. 

Through your generous giving you are helping to give young women and children access to a brighter future. Over the last 20 years Act4Africa has changed attitudes, transformed communities, and saved lives across East Africa. Over the last 20 years, we have:

• Provided holistic health and vocational training to hundreds of vulnerable adolescent mothers (see case study below)
• Provided quality early-years’ education to over 100 children at Kathy’s Kindergarten
• Trained over 600 healthcare workers and young people to teach others about gender equality and sexual health
• Provided life skills, financial literacy and business enterprise skills to over 9000 disadvantaged women and girls
• Supported 13 girls since 2018 to progress through higher education as part of our Grow A Girl programme
• Provided almost two million people with HIV/AIDS and sexual health awareness training
• Through Grains for Growth, we provided agriculture training for 35 small-holder farmers, increasing their ability to feed their families and earn an income

We could not have delivered our projects without your support, which has given the greatest gift of all to the people of Uganda, the gift of a better life. We would love to celebrate with you on Saturday 20th November 12 at 12:00 GMT, if you can join us please RSVP by Monday 1st November via emailing admin@act4africa.org.uk

Case Study: Amina

Amina is currently taking part in the Act4Africa programme for Adolescent Mothers which provides mental health support, sexual and reproductive education, and vocational training. Her life has been transformed through her interactions with her peers and the caring Act4Africa staff. 

Amina, 20 years old, is a married mother of 4 children

Amina was married at the age of 15 to a man who used drugs. Amina’s husband was violent and abused her. The couple lived with the husband’s parents and they did not intervene in the abuse – they said it was due to Amina’s behaviour and they didn’t recognise or admit that the husband was using drugs. Amina felt a lot of stress, and had no support. Looking back on it, she says she was traumatised. She had been suffering from debilitating head-aches and taking painkillers everyday. She even sought medical care from the hospital as the headaches were so severe. These headaches may have been a physical manifestation of the stress Amina was experiencing.

During the Act4Africa session on Stress Management, Amina said her heart was touched and she realised she wanted to come out of the abusive situation she was in. After learning about stress management and self-care, Amina made some changes in her life. She began to take care of herself and value herself, internalising the positive affirmations provided by Act4Africa staff and peers in the programme. As a result she says she is a better mother and wife now, and amazingly her husband also changed his ways. After discussing their life situation with the Act4Africa team, he decided to stop using drugs, and he stopped beating Amina. He has spoken with pride at community meetings about how his life, and the life of his family, has improved as a result of the programme. Amina has also stopped beating her children and has learned better ways to express herself and manage feelings of stress. Amazingly, her headaches, which were once nearly constant, have completely disappeared. 

Through the Act4Africa programme, Amina has become a leader and an influential member of her community. She has started her own business selling food items and is so proud to be able to provide for her family. In sessions at Kathy’s Centre, Amina really enjoys tailoring skills training and she helps her peers – organising the other young mothers to keep their work environment clean, and she helps others with tailoring skills when they need a hand. Amina’s life has been fundamentally transformed, and now her talents can shine through. We can see that she will be a great change agent in her community.

Thank you for supporting this life changing work!

Links:

• Act4Africa Website

Thanks to the generous donations from our GlobalGiving supporters and others, over the past four months Act4Africa's dedicated local team has provided holistic support to 100 vulnerable young mothers, and reached out to their families and wider community in Mayuge District, Uganda, even during the most difficult of times. Covid19 is once again hitting Uganda hard, causing hospitals to overflow, oxygen supplies to run out, and normal life to grind to a halt.

Starting in April, our team took every precaution to ensure that the young mothers in our program could attend sessions at our center in a Covid-safe way. In total, 100 young mothers met outdoors with their babies in the grounds Kathy's Centre (Act4Africa's base) in groups of 20 per day, taking part in uplifting mental health and wellbeing sessions, as well as empowering sexual and reproductive health lessons. Many of these young mothers are survivors of sexual abuse and trauma, and we are blessed to be in a position to speak life-affirming messages of love and hope into their lives. For these young women who have been isolated and sidelined due to the stigma of unintended pregnancy, finding a new group of friends has been deeply healing. True and lasting friendships between the young women are forming as they encourage one another to reach the goals they have set in their own lives, and support one another to heal from past wounds.

At Act4Africa we understand that community is everything, so in addition to empowering the young mothers themselves, our team also reached out to each of their families. In May, through honest and at times emotionally charged conversations, our team gently began a process of reconciliation between young mothers and their parents and partners, mending broken relationships and ensuring everyone in their family group understood how and why we were intervening in their lives.

Relationships of mutual respect are being formed and reinforced between the Act4Africa team and the community in Mayuge. In June, growing speculation of a new national lock-down spurred our team to act quickly to inform the community of the particular dangers girls and women face during lock-down conditions, hoping to prevent the compound tragedy of crisis pregnancy during a time of societal upheaval. On 10th June, the Act4Africa team held a one-hour radio program on Mayuge FM, the most popular local station, reaching 5,000 listeners, compelling parents to look out for their adolescent daughters to prevent another spike in unintended pregnancy as was seen during the first lock-down in 2020. During the final 15 minutes of the program, 15 eager listeners called into the show, thanking our team for the care and support we are providing for vulnerable young mothers, and imploring us to expand our work to neighboring districts.

The very next day, a second national lock-down was announced. The strict stay-at-home order began on Friday 11th June, scheduled to last for 42 days. During these 6 long weeks families who were already living hand to mouth at the edge of extreme poverty were plunged into destitution, unable to earn and income or access food. Families who grow crops on small plots outside of their own communities were not able to travel to harvest their crops - so they stayed at home starving while the food rotted in their fields. Starvation and malnutrition is widespread as a result. Now that the travel restrictions have finally eased, our team are busy preparing emergency food and hygiene supply parcels for each of the 100 young mothers and their families - helping to rebuild their physical strength after a terrible period of hunger.

Our team are eagerly awaiting the day in mid-August when the young mothers once again return to our center to start building their future plans with our love and support. Thank you for helping us to changes the lives of these precious young women and their families. We couldn't do it without you!

Quotes from 3 of the young mothers in our program:

Links:

• Act4Africa Website