The Hunger Project is excited to be part of Her Choice—an alliance of organizations that are working to halt child marriage in 11 countries, with the long-term goal of supporting the creation of child marriage-free communities in which girls and young women are free to decide if, when and whom to marry. The Hunger Project-Uganda’s mission to empower women through community action gained significant momentum with the launch of the Her-Choice kickoff workshop from September 21 – 23rd 2016.
The workshop was launched at The Hunger Project’s County Office in Kampala to familiarize staff with the objectives and activities of the Her Choice Project’s Theory of Change (ToC), which highlights the need to improve girls’ access to sexual and reproductive health and rights and strengthen the economic security of their families. The workshop brought together 28 staff and volunteers from all nine Her Choice project implementing epicenters including Namayumba, Mpigi, Kiringente, Mbale, Iganga, Bulamagi, Kenshunga, Wakiso and Mbarara Epicenters.
The events were led by a technical sexual and reproductive health and rights expert, convened by the Dutch Embassy in Kampala, to orient the staff on the link between sexual and reproductive health and child marriage. The expert further articulated the ways in which Her Choice has contributed to the Health Sector Development Project’s aim of providing universal coverage for health and related services.
Not only is this goal in line with The Hunger Project-Uganda’s commitments as members of the partnership implementing the Health Sector Development Project, but as Judith, a volunteer from the Namayumba Epicenter stated, “ [The] Her Choice project neatly builds on the other The Hunger Project-Uganda’s tools like Vision, Commitment and Action that addresses issues of mind-set change. This will enable deepen the impact of our community development work.”
As a result of the workshop, Her Choice epicenter-level annual work plans for the year 2017 were drafted in addition to a checklist of communication guidelines and protocols on each of the Her Choice ToC strategies. These collaborations serve as a reminder of the fact that creating a strong administrative network that works to tackle the issue of child marriage on the local, national and international levels is a key step in sustaining the movement towards women’s empowerment.
Learn More:
Our work in Uganda
Our work towards empowering women and ending child marriage
Empowering Girls
HerChoice
Published October 4, 2016
