Where We Serve – Uganda

Our programs in Uganda continue to grow. We have increased support to our partners and began a new outreach to the war-ravaged North -- Ma's Center; HIV/AIDS Long Term Survival Skills Workshops For Rural Women; Rayland Rural Development Organization (RARUDO); The North.

Three-tiered bunk bed in boys' dormitory.

Ma’s Center

Our partnership with the Uganda Martyrs Orphan Project (UMOP) now cares for nearly 1400 orphans and other vulnerable children of all ages.  This requires a variety of programs: Food support and medical care, nurseries and kindergartens, academic and vocational secondary schools. Our support over the years has allowed the program to serve ever more children, build dormitories, build and equip a library, buy a bus, and more.

Trainees in Women's Workshop.

HIV/AIDS Long Term Survival Skills For Rural Women -  Workshops

This program started in Tororo in 2005 with the goal of helping people with AIDS live longer and healthier lives. The initial group of 35 women has trained more than 5000 others, using grassroots networks for preventing AIDS, improving family health through nutrition, understanding and advocating for women’s rights, and empowering women with hope, skills and a shared mission.  “Women are now experts in their own destiny.” 

Working with local networks, we have fostered a significant change on a tiny budget – something that sets the River Fund apart from many large organizations. After three years, that first group of women has become trainers of trainers. The need is great -- 59% of people with HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa are women. Only about 1/3 of people in developing countries who need life saving AIDS drugs can get them.

The youth of RARUDO.

RARUDO

Since 2002 we have partnered with the Rayland Rural Development Organization (RARUDO), a farm coop of about 100 mostly women-headed families which is working toward economic sustainability. Seventeen trainers from the women’s workshops have reached over 800 rural women, and are seeing more HIV prevention, better family nutrition, and better preparation for antiretroviral treatment. This year RARUDO has started a new partnership for people with disabilities, built a new vocational training center, started a cottage industry making clothing, opened a bakery, and set up a program breeding dairy goats. While assisting their long-term development, we continue to offer short term help to the many orphaned children in their community.
www.rarudo.org

Children in North Uganda war zone.

The North

Twenty years of war in Northern Uganda have left enormous suffering and loss.  Thirty thousand kidnapped children were turned into killers or sex slaves by rebel forces, and a 1.5 million people were resettled into squalid refugee camps – in their own country.  Now a fragile truce has been arranged, and the people are on the move, back to villages and farms to restart their lives. Against this background, it was an exciting development in March 2007 when three of the women we had trained (see above) took a bus to Kitgum in the war zone to begin training women there. Since then, we have continued to work with these women to train others and develop grassroots networks.