Prevent starvation among 70 families in Uganda

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank the entire team of Community Concerns Uganda Initiative for the great work delivered during this third quarter of the year. We thank our partners and donors who have provided funding for the projects to be implemented. Your continuing support makes all of our work possible, and on behalf of the CCUg staff and the women and children we serve, we thank you very much for your generosity and pray that you will keep up with the spirit of giving. I thank the Executive Board of Trustees for the advice and follow up on our work; we are indeed grateful. Not forgetting the members that we are serving, thank you for being available and allowing us to serve you.

Managing Director

OVC School Sponsorship Project

Due to the COVID-19 lockdown, schools were not operating therefore, all our sponsored children are being kept at home and are learning from there.

Achievements

• We monitored the children through phone calls and verified that the children are reading their books and helping their parents while at home. The majority were in good health.
• We identified several sponsored children whose families were experiencing food insecurity and we provided them with emergency food.

Challenges

• Again this quarter, the biggest challenge we faced was school closure due to COVID-19.
• Two of the children  became ill with malaria; we took them to the hospital and facilitated their treatment. Both have since recovered.

Adult Literacy and Vocational Skilling

We have six students enrolled in our Community Resource Center tailoring class and nine students enrolled in hair dressing.

Achievements

• During the quarter, the tailoring class learnt how to make four different types of dresses: the round dress, letter ‘A’ dress, gathered dress and pull neck dress.
• The tailoring class has also learnt how to make two types of trousers: the elastic full short and double pocket short.
• The tailoring class also learnt how to take the measurements required to make a shirt, identified the nine parts of a shirt and how to make and assemble them.
• Out of the nine students studying hair dressing, five now know how to plait, retouch and treat hair, three are still learning and are showing moderate skill in performance; only 1 is still underperforming, but she is trying and promising to work harder.
• Eight out of the 15 students consistently attended the parenting skills lessons and successfully completed them. They gained skills of anger management, conflict resolution, and menstrual hygiene management

Challenges

• Due to Covid-19, the students were unable to meet for a while and this caused them to forget some of the theory they had learnt.
• One student missed both practical and theory testing due to personal illness.

Menstrual Hygiene Management

We had an on-going Menstrual Hygiene Management project funded by Amplify Change. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we requested permission from our donors to change some of the planned activities in light of the fact that the schools included in the project were under lockdown. Amplify Change gave us a no-additional-cost extension of 3 months to complete agreed-upon project work, some of which involved new activities to replace others that we were unable to implement during the lockdown. The new activities included research on the impact of COVID-19 on SRHR (Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights) among adolescents and women, Interpersonal Group Therapy to identify and address the needs of depressed women, distributing Maama Kits and Baby Receivers, and supporting expectant mothers with transport money to enable them to go to the hospital to deliver, and providing them with emergency food.

Achievements

• Twenty four women from one of the villages where we work  were screened to assess their depression status using the PHQ-9. After assessment, 16 were identified as depressed and were invited to join a small group to receive interpersonal therapy (IPT-G) as a treatment measure. Two of the women were found to suffer with severe depression with active suicide ideation. Both received immediate individual counseling.
• Ten men from another village were screened to assess their depression level using the PHQ -9 depression assessment form. Of the ten, six were found to be depressed and were invited to join a group in order to receive interpersonal Group Therapy as a treatment measure.
• Twenty nine women from another village were screened for depression and 26 were enrolled in group therapy.
• Thirteen women from another village were also provided with group therapy for depression. These women also received training in financial literacy after they completed their group therapy.
• A total of 63 women and 7 men were trained to make reusable sanitary pads from the following communities: 
• A total of twenty-three women from two villages received materials for making reusable pads so they could put into practice the skills gained of making reusable pads.
• We distributed 47 Maama Kits and emergency food supplies of powdered milk, posho (5kgs), beans (3kgs) and Millet flour for porridge (2kgs) to expectant mothers from six villages.

Challenges

• Some depressed individuals one of the villages did not know Lusoga, which was the language of instruction. We found it quite hard to share views with them and unfortunately, no one in the group could translate for these group members.
• During the initial stage of IPT-G for the women of one of the villages, we did not allocate enough time for all members of the group to share their experiences and those who did have an opportunity to share did not exhaust their experiences. More time was allocated for subsequent sessions.
• We also found poor time management skills among the people who came for the therapy.
• Heavy rainfall during some group therapy sessions meant participants couldn’t hear each other speak and also caused some members miss some sessions.
• Lack of communication among the clients in one of the villages caused to arrive for some meetings only to find that the members were not going to attend due to an unforeseen situation, such as the loss of a loved one.