Support 225 adolescent mothers to thrive in Uganda

Last month I had the opportunity to visit our project work in Mayuge District, Uganda.

I was delighted to meet Prossy who is one of the sponsored peer educators supported by Act4Africa. She is 16 years old now. She lives with her aunt and the family of six sleep on the floor in one tiny room in a small hovel. She walks to school for two hours each way and asked if she could move school to attend a boarding school. The village situation is high risk for a vulnerable teenage girl as there are several male drinking places she has to pass each day. She is a very keen to complete her education and enjoys teaching the other pupils about HIV risks. She knows about this first hand as her aunt is HIV positive and her uncle died of HIV/AIDS related disease.

I also visited a number of the womens groups which we have started in the area. These were quite inspirational. The group in the photograph below had opened their own bank account and had over 600,000 ugs saved. I also saw several examples of successful women’s group small scale enterprises from the project. I also met Olivia who was a superb example of young female leader. Although she is only 17 years old she had saved enough to be able to buy two cows. Another  group in Kitovu Village had opened a bank account and had more than 1m ugs saved. Previously these young woemn never had any surplus cash. Other examples of small enterpsies they have started include hairdressing, cooperative maize field and vegetable selling.

 We hope to be able to explain more fully about what a difference we have been able to make with your support over the last 12 months in our next field report.