Sadly, most of the rural communities are left behind in terms of service delivery, infrastructure development, quality education, economic development, and markets for their products.
Uganda also hosts the largest refugee population in Africa—more than one million refugees have fled their home countries to seek asylum in Uganda. With the increasing number of the refugees in the northern part of Uganda, low incomes and reduced opportunities for people to engage in income-generating activities has resulted in high poverty levels. For many in the refugee camps, every day is another day to face the trauma that they have endured. They are forced to pick themselves up by utilising the scant available resources and try to forge a way ahead without fully knowing what lies before them.
It is difficult for parents to see their children die due to nutrition-related diseases, knowing that the hope they had for better education for their children is now but a dream. Young boys and girls hope when they lack job opportunities and, worse still, they have no skills to create their future. Some of the girls give themselves up willingly to older men in marriages that they hope will address their economic needs.
Interventions include:
Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) provides stable spaces for the children at risk in IDP camps in the poor neglected communities. It is a platform providing them with the opportunity to have a good start on their educational journeys. Child-friendly learning and stimulating environments are provided and supported.
Through our adolescent empowerment programme, Bonga, Strømme Foundation reaches out to pupils in school to try and reduce the dropout rates, especially for girls, and to address early marriages in some communities and provide equal opportunities for both boys and girls to fight poverty.
The Technical Vocational Education Training (TVET) programme empowers youth by giving them employable skills to enable them to earn a living. Through skills development, young people take up productive livelihoods and employment opportunities that contribute to their household income and the economies of their communities.
Community Managed Saving Groups (CMSGs). Community members are mobilised in small savings groups where different skills and services are passed on to them to provide an opportunity for stable income-generating activities to meet their basic needs, thus lifting them out of poverty.
Read more: http://hdr.undp.org/en/countries/profiles/UGA