Services
Championing Children’s Rights for a Brighter Future
Hope for the Children Foundation Uganda is committed to safeguarding children’s rights, promoting education, and fostering equal opportunities to create lasting change in the Amudat district.
Amudat district is inhabited by the pokot, a semi-nomid tribe which lives according to a strong cultural and patriachal system. The men provide security to house assets and usually decide over the expenditure of the household budgets. Male youth and boys are traditionally responsible for herding cattle; instead of enjoying education. Women and girls do most of the household and community chores. They are rarely involved in decision making processes at home and in the community. The Pokot tribe traditionally performs Female Genital Mutilation (FGM); a practice that scares young girs for life. After the cut, girls are usually married off at a young age (12-15 years old). Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), gender Based Violence (GBV) and Early marriage (EFM) are deeply rooted in the culture, and the pokot do not appreciate these practices as a violation of human rights or as a denial to informed consent and decision making. Violence against youth is perpetuated by culture.
The remoteness of Amudat, its violent past and the traditional nomad and patriachal culture have resulted in very low development figures. Only 5% of the entire adult population is literate and only one out of every five children goes to school and are informed on their rights and development. Parents either don’t have the resources to support the youth’s in development, or fail to do so out of cultural beliefs. The youths, Disabled children and children infected with HIV often face neglect due to cultural perceptions. These child’s violations are treated as normal and accepted in the Pokot culture. Domestic abuse and child protection issues continue to previal in Amudat District, despite the efforts of the District Local Government, Non-governmental organizations and a handful of Civil Soceity Organization (CSOs).
It is from this background that Hope For Karamoja Children Foundation advocates for youth empowerment through skilling.
Championing Gender Equality for a Brighter Future
Explore our impactful initiatives designed to uplift children and youths in Uganda.
Youth Empowerment
Equipping young people with skills for sustainable livelihoods.
Hope For The Children Foundation is a grassroots organization, locally embedded and highly appreciated by the community and the Amudat District Local Government. Our board members are well-known role-models. Four of our board members were among the first girls from Amudat ever to go to school, at the time taken by force by missionaries. Hope for The Children Foundation maintains a strong and positive working relationships with the district and is an executive in the board of directors of the Amudat NGO Forum.
Hope For The Children Foundation has over 10 years of experience in designing and implementing interventions focusing on women and child rights, sustainable livelihood programmes, Gender Based Violence, psycho-social counselling, HIV/AIDS awareness and nutrition, peacebuilding and above all (back) to school campiagns. Hope For The Children Has been able to implement activities with the annual subscription of 100,000 uganda shillings paid by the seven board members and donations from other well-wishers in the community. These funds have been used to buy scholastic materials such as books, pens, pencils and uniforms for the most vulnerable and underprevileged children, to motivate them to stay in school. The organization implemented HIV/AIDS awareness activites with grants (8,450,640 Uganda shillings from The AIDS Support Organization (TASO) in 2017.
Children’s Rights
Promoting and protecting the rights of vulnerable children in our community.
The Hope For The Children Foundation Programme targets the most vulnerable and underprivilleged children and youth in amudat district the organization apparently supports (102) beneficiaries girls (62) and 40 boys. The board members and staff have established a list of red zones“. These are the most remote villages or parishes where schools are far away, few children access education and FGM is practiced in abundance. Hope For The Children Foundation visits these red zones and interacts with the LCI’S, religious leaders and clan elders. Together with these stakeholders, orphans and underprivileged children in the parish are identified. After receiving names, information is verified with the neighbours of the identified children. Final verification is done in the homestead, where the situation is assessd and the staff have an ooportunity to interact with the child(ren)/parent(s)/caregiver(s).
In other circumstances, Hope For The receives the names of vulnerable school drop-outs from primary and secondary school teachers. In such a situation, information is cooperation with the LCI’S, local / religious leaders, neighbours of the identified children and members of the homestead.
Prevalence of child abuse and child neglect is high in Amudat. From 2014-2017, cases reported in the Child and Family Protection Unit (CFPU). The report in Amudat were as follows; 63 times Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), 59 times Early Forced Marriage (EFM), 113 times child neglect and 159 cases of domestic violence. Hope for The Children Foundation works in coordination with the District CFPU and receives referral cases of children in desperate situations, the majority deing girls who escaped from FGM and/or child marriage. Upon receiving a case, the team verifies the story with the witnesses, LCI’S, religious leaders, clan elders, neighbours and the child(ren), parent(s) and /or caregiver(s), before the child becomes a beneficiary of the scholarship programme.
HIV/AIDS Awareness
Raising awareness, providing education to prevent HIV/AIDS and support communities.
Education is not yet widely embraced in the pokot community. In the most remote villages, boys are appreciated as cattle keepers, while girls are appreciated for dowry they will bring to their families home. Hope for the children Foundation visits these remote villages to sensitize the communities about the sensitization, we also address other development-related issues, such as:
- Female Genital Mutilation
- Early Forced Marriage
- Child protection
- HIV/AIDS and other common STDs
- Disease prevention through good hygiene and sanitation practices
- Nutrition
- Livelihoods and lifeskills.
- Human rights wareness
- Gender roles and women rights
- Gender Based Violence
- Alcohol addition, in relation to child negligence and gender-based violence (GBV)
Hope For The Children Foundation conducts community sensitization in coorperation with (head)teachers, community mobilizers, local role models, village Health Teams (VHT‘S), medical staffs, religious leaders, development partners and staffs at different levels in the local District Local goverment.
Empowering Futures Through Education
Join us in transforming lives—donate, volunteer, or explore how you can help create brighter futures for children in Uganda. Take action today and make a difference.
SCHOLARSHIP PACKAGE
After identification, children are supported to complete their education until university level. For primary level, hope for The Children Foundation works together with the best performing schools in the district. For secondary level, children are either taken to a school within the district, or to a better performing school outside of the district, based on their performance (PLE Result). In case of well- perrforming “O“-level graduates, the organization tries to lobby for funding to enable them continue with their education.
Our scholarship package is needs-based, and varies from child to child. Extremely poor parents caregiver(s) are required to contribute a minimum of 5 pens per year. Those from slightly better-off families have a larger mandatory contribution. This contribution is reguired to ascertain the parents interest and to ensure the responsibility is shared between Hope For The Children Foundation and the family. Hope For The Children foundation admires to see the parents and caregiver(s) actively engaged in the education motivation for their children. In case parent(s)/ caregiver(s) are no longer involved in the life of a child, due to for example a police-related issue, all basic needs are covered by Hope For The Children Foundation. We monitor our beneficiaries frequently, through phone calls phone calls to their(head) teachers and regular visits to their schools. The monitoring visits takes place at least thrice a term for the schools within Amudat, and once a term for the schools outside of our district. During monitoring visits, our staff interact with the child(ren) and their teacher(s), discuss the performance of the child in school and other issues related to well- being of the child.
PARENT ENGAGEMENT
Hope For The Children foundation believes that the well- being and future of a child shoud be the first priority of any parent. Most of the parents of our beneficiares are illiterate. For them, school is a vague concept. Involving them actively in the education of their children, for example by taking them to the school once a year during parents day, helps them to better understand the benefit of education for the life of their child. Besides attending the parents day in their child’s school, parents are regularly visited by our staff at concerns, their roles and their responsibilities.
TERMLY HOLIDAY PROGRAMMES.
School-going children face a lot of risks during school holidays. The children may suffer abuse at home, and girls face the threat of being circuncised, married –off and /or impregnated. Others may be kept at home when it’s time to report back to school, to work, to work in garden during the farming season or take take care of their younger siblings. Even if the family is supportive towards the education of the, peer-pressure from out-of-school children in the village can pose a threat. Hope For The Children uses part of The school holidays For a holiday programme. The termly holiday programme on;
- Sensitizing children on their rights and other issues relevant to their age (HIV/AIDS,STD’S) adolescence, menustration, genital mutilation, forced marriage).
- Equiping children with necessary life-skill, such as teamwork, self-presentation and confidence building, using training, sports, games and drama play.
- Career counseling and psycho-social counselling.
