Provide Vocational Training for Ugandan Women

With hard work and fierce determination, Aida has been building a better life for herself, and for her children, for nearly 35 years.

Aida grew up in Padibo in Northern Uganda with her parents and siblings.  She attended school through Primary 5, but then her family lacked the money for her to continue.

She met and married her husband, a pastor, in the North.  As they witnessed the violence of the war and mourned the death of many family members, her husband feared for their safety.  They fled to the Acholi Quarter where other relatives had come to resettle.  When they first reached the Quarter, she felt a sense of relief.  “We got a house to rent and I slept very well for the first time in a long time.  I did not have fear of being killed.”

Aida was safe, but life was far from easy.  For many years, she struggled working in the perilous conditions of the stone quarry – dangerous and grueling labor.  On the side, she brewed the local beer to earn more money.

Aida and her husband have four children of their own and are the guardians for her four nieces and nephews who were orphaned when her siblings perished in the war.   

“I have hope that my children will be successful.  They are well-behaved and do well in school,” boasts Aida, with pride.  “If they continue this way, they will get good jobs and have a better future.”  Indeed, she is right.  Her eldest daughter is working in a beauty salon.  Her second born has become a priest.  The remaining two are still in school.

But life in the Quarter has changed and new challenges have arisen.  Aida would very much like to return to the North where she can work the land as she once did.  “There is no war in the North now,” she says smiling.  “It is now safe to return home.”

Aida would like to start a business selling second hand clothes and shoes. She will purchase her inventory from the wholesale markets in Kampala and then travel to the North to sell them. In this way, she hopes to create a business which she can continue, once she is able to resettle in the North.

Please consider making a one time donation of $100 so that Aida would have the the seed money to start her business.