Child Protection Uganda Project #8927

Empower Child Domestic Workers Through Education

by Platform for Labour Action (PLA)

Project Report | Jul 21, 2015
Our success is yours too!

By Adam Timothy Mayemba | Monitoring and Evaluator Volunteer

NAMBAFU
Nambafu is 18 years old. She grew up been taken care of by her parents in Nsambya who also took care of her school fees together with the siblings. Her mother sells dry fish and the father is a taxi driver. Her parents later separated and she dropped out of school after completing her Primary Seven. The parents also didn’t have enough funds to cater for the 3 children’s school fees.
Before Nambafu was rescued from child labour, she was engaged in fish selling alongside Nsambya road. She was staying with her mother and working for her mother so that they earn a living, her mother also sells fish.The small business of selling fish is the overall source of livelihood for the family. Nambafu used to get ten thousand shillings which they used for buying food and other basic needs. She started selling fish after dropping out from school. She sold fish for four months, her mother was approached by PLA task force member who asked them to stop engaging her in child labour, she introduced the project of Stop Child Exploitation and introduced the idea of going back to school so that she is able to earn a living and improve on her living conditions. She accepted as well as the parents who advised her to do catering since she used to fry fish and they thought it was easy to get jobs from restaurants than cosmetology.
She was then enrolled at Nile Vocational Institute in 2013 and completed in 2014. After completing school, she immediately got a job through a family friend in Nsambya hospital restaurant where she bakes chapattis, mandazi (donuts), cakes, cooks chicken, local food and international foods like Italian, Indian and Chinese, these are prepared when hired. She earns 150,000/= per month and also does outside catering on parties and ceremonies.
Her living condition/livelihood has improved; she also takes care of her basic needs like, paying rent.
She has also saved four hundred thousand shillings and her plan is to buy a plot of land.
She also faces a few challenges like paying rent she costs 50,000/=, delay in salary payment and she is also overworked since she works from Monday to Monday.

Attachments:

Nambafu being interviewed by the M&E Volunteer (DOCX)

1 Attachment

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Apr 21, 2015
Our success is yours too!

By SUSAN EJANG | PROGRAM ASSISTANT-

Platform for labour Action continues to provide support to 26 girls with school lunch, scholastic materials and physiological support in all aspects of their lives, this with support from GlobalGiving. The beneficiaries go to government owned schools whose funding for school fees mainly comes from the Ugandan government, the schools that the girls go include: Elia Olet primary school, Lira Modern primary school, Lira police primary school, Lira primary school, Ojwina primary school, Starch Factory primary school, Lango Quran primary school, King James primary school, Railways primary school, Adyel primary school, Canon Lawrence primary school, Lira Parents’ primary school and Sir Samuel Joe nursery and primary school

This project has made a difference in the lives of so many girls in northern Uganda with access to education that has in turn built their self-esteem and performance through the continuous counseling and monitoring from Platform for Labour Action.

SCHOOL MONITORING VISITS
19 school monitoring visits were this quarter made to PLA beneficiaries. The girls were visited in their different schools of Lira parents, Lira Police primary school, Lango Quran primary school, Sir Samuel Joe primary school, Adyel primary school, railways primary school and Lira modern primary school among others.

The Girls have been at their good behavior and continue to perform to their best though they still face a challenges with some of their guardians not supporting their education, a case in point is Egwel who aunty attempt to take her scholastic materials and give them to her biological daughter, we were able to talk to the guardian who denied the all the allegations but agreed to continue supporting Lydia.
GIRL GETS FULL SCHOLARSHIP
One of the girls Morine managed to get full scholarship from King James secondary school. Morine will study at King James Secondary school Lira freely in the boarding section all fully sponsored for by the director of the school. After the primary seven vacation Morine had to more on to the next level of education, but lacked funding and because of this, her guardians’ only option left was to marry her off at an early age of 15years. This provoked us to try many more alternatives for Morine’s secondary education.

Early marriage is becoming common in northern Uganda especially when parents and guardians fail to cater for the children in school and also when they have so many children that they can not take care of, its looked as a way of making money for the rest of the other family members.
Morine is now happy at her new school in senior one.

COUNSELING
ALL the current PLA beneficiaries were this quarter counseled and talked to by PLA staff and especially PLA program Assistant and the administrative volunteer who was once PLA’s school beneficiary, He has also been sharing his experiences as a beneficiary of the project and what he did to make him successful today.

The girls have been encouraged to study hard because then it’s easy to get for them support for especially the different schools in Lira who especially provide support based on a student’s performance in either class or sports.

CALL FOR MORE SUPPORT
Many girls are still out forced to marry at an early age, forced to work beyond their means, because there is no one to support for further education, some of the girls continue to visit the office of Platform for Labour action to get into the program, but Limited support is provided hence not all of them can benefit from it.

I therefore call all the well wishes to support these girls’s education; it will make their better future.

PLANNED ACTIVITIES
PLA will continue to support the girls in providing them with physiological support, scholastic materials and school lunch. Monitoring visits to both the schools and homes will be carried out to analyze the progress of the girls in their performance at home and at school; this will ascertain what more support the girls will need.

More girls are going to be identified and introduced to the project to with the support from Global Giving donors and well wishers.

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Feb 20, 2015
Shakira the hairdresser from child domestic worker

By Christine Tezikya | Programme Assistant

The beneficiary grew up being taken care of by her parents who were also taking care of her school fees. Her father later died and the grandmother and aunt started taking care of her and her school dues. She dropped out of school after her grandmother died. The grand mother and her auntie used to pool money together with her aunt her school fees; her aunt could no longer afford her fees without any other persons support. As a result she started working in her aunt’s home at the same time helping at the hotel as a waiter in bid to raise school fees and go back to school. She also used to earn one thousand shillings (1000) per day which she used to save in the saving box for her school fees but it was not accumulating at all. She therefore could not afford to go to school.

Before Shakira was rescued from child labour as a domestic worker, she was staying with her aunt and working in her home as a domestic worker at the same time doubling work in a restaurant at the park yard. This simple restaurant is the overall source of livelihood for her aunt that she stays with. She had dropped out of school after the death of her grandmother who used to pool with her aunt some money and pay her school fees. Her aunt stays in Nkere zone in Makindye division. She started staying with her aunt who informed her that she needed her support to do domestic work and also to work with her in her restaurant as a waitress and in between as in order to pay her school fees. She started work in September 2013 and would work from 7:00am to 12:00am.

‘I badly wanted to go to school but as each day went by, I realised it was becoming hard because however much I tried to save the little money I earned, it could not become enough...I am happy I got an opportunity to get vocational skills training in cosmetology from PLA. It answered my prayer for wanting to go back to school’Says Shakira

Shakira works in a Saloon in Kamwokya near PLA offices. It has been easy for PLA to visit her, interact with her and the employer to find out how she is progressing.

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