| APRIL 2005 - REPORT TO THE GLOBAL BOARD |
Epicenter strategy
THP-Uganda has been active on-the-ground for the last seven years. Through its epicenters, THP-Uganda implements programs to empower local people to become self-reliant in their fight to end hunger and poverty. Through their participation at the epicenters, more and more people are committed to ensuring that their villages are free from hunger and poverty.
Recently, THP-Uganda established a new epicenter in Mbarara, in Western Uganda, adding to its six existing epicenters.
Vision, Commitment and Action Workshops: Animator training
THP-Uganda now presents its VCA workshops in all the villages served by its epicenters. It has trained hundreds of animators, young men and women selected from the VCA workshops. The animators visit villages throughout their districts mobilizing the villagers to work together to create a better future for themselves and their communities. THP-Uganda reports that the participants are very enthusiastic about THP’s SPIA methodology, which empowers people to plan and work together to end their own hunger and poverty. THP-Uganda invites elected local government officials, representatives of ministries and other officials to participate in VCA workshops alongside local participants. Local and national government officials are impressed with the results THP-Uganda has achieved.
In order to achieve food security, THP-Uganda organizes and mobilizes its local partners to work together on their communal lands both to increase and to diversify their food production, including the introduction of new varieties of rice. Surplus crops are stored in the epicenters’ food banks providing our partners with access to food staples all year long. THP-Uganda also provides improved seeds, appropriate agricultural techniques (such as drip irrigation) and diversified crops so that our partners can work on their land throughout the whole year, rather than for just one season per year. This enables local farmers to produce different kinds of food to improve nutrition for their families.
THP-Uganda’s credit program enables both men and women to buy improved seeds and to engage in income-generating activities such as poultry rearing and fish farming. Through these activities and improved crops, local partners earn the income needed to pay their children’s school fees and to purchase essential items for their families. At first, men failed to pay back their loans on time, while women were more committed to paying on time. THP-Uganda notes with satisfaction to note that men in most epicenters, with the support of their wives, are now paying back virtually all of their loans on-time.
To date the AWFFI program in Uganda has tremendously empowered women to gaining more income and save more money.
THP-Uganda has established nursery schools with feeding programs in all of its epicenters. In addition, THP-Uganda has made Functional Adult Literacy (FAL) classes in local languages available to both men and women. FAL students can improve their ability to manage income-generating activities as well as credit and savings activities. In addition to learning to read and write, women can gain useful skills and information related to nutrition, farming, health and family planning. Graduates of FAL classes, especially women, are more confident, better able to communicate and more willing take on leadership roles within their communities. Unfortunately, limited funds and the lack of instructors have impeded expansion of the program. THP-Uganda is working to convince local governments to expand the FAL program.
Each epicenter in Uganda has a health clinic staffed full-time by trained personnel provided by the Ministry of Health. Medical doctors visit the epicenters once a week. In addition, medical staff and midwives arrange for home visits. So far, thousands of people, with a focus on women and children, have been treated at the clinics. Maternity centers, by providing regular pre-natal care and a place where healthy babies can be born safely, have contributed to a substantial reduction in the IMR in each of the areas served by the epicenters. There are annual immunization and vaccination campaigns for children, protecting thousands of children against the most prevalent preventable diseases such as polio and tetanus.
Through active cooperation with the local government, THP-Uganda has succeeded in ensuring that rural populations have access safe drinking water for their homes through the creation of protected water sources. This has greatly reduced water-borne diseases.
THP-Uganda has expanded its “HIV/AIDS & Gender Inequality” program aimed at preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS. Specialized animators, trained by THP-Uganda, work with the local population. In addition, gender inequality workshops are presented in all six epicenters. Despite initial resistance, how gender inequality contributes to the spread of HIV/AIDS now seems to be well understood by men who have participated in the workshops. As a result of these workshops, for example, traditional birth attendants working in the epicenters now work in a more hygienic environment that does not expose their clients to HIV/AIDS.
The United Nations Millennium Project has set up a Country Team in each developing country to achieve its eight goals by the year 2015:
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As a member of the UN Hunger Task Force, The Global Hunger Project has made achievement of the MDGs a priority of our work in all the countries where we have programs. Accordingly, our Country Director in Uganda is now working closely with the Ministry of Rural Development and the UNDP to include THP-Uganda as a full member of the Country Team in Uganda charged with task of achieving the MDGs by the year 2015.
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