THIS PROJECT HAS BEEN COMPLETED.
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UEnd has a policy that allows project partners to fundraise themselves for their projects.  When a project is marked completed this is what has happened. We do this because the project starting quickly is ideally what we want.

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A new expanded project will be starting soon. Please see update below.

Project Description:

Almost 100,000 orphans in the Kigezi region of Uganda are not receiving help in any form. Over 5000 of these orphans are living with HIV/AIDS and need programs that help them and their host families to survive.  

Uganda is primarily a rural nation, with eighty percent of its workforce engaged in agriculture but the combination of civil strife and the HIV/AIDS pandemic has devastated the ranks of Uganda’s farmers. In some areas, the majority of farmers are widowed women working to support their children. Women farmers face particular challenges as they are frequently denied access to land and farming implements.

In Kigezi, in south-western Uganda, children orphaned by the AIDS epidemic are taken in by extended family members, which are often woman-headed households that struggle to provide for their needs under conditions of extreme poverty and subsistence agriculture. Often orphans are HIV positive from birth and need access to healthcare clinics, nutritional support and counseling, creating insurmountable financial burdens on host families (mostly single mothers or grandmothers). Since little support is available from the state, this situation leads to abandonment, which further exacerbates the problems of poverty and disease. 

For seven years the KIGEZI Healthcare Foundation (KIHEFO) has been working in the Kigezi region of Uganda on the prevention and treatment of AIDS as well as in support of the families and communities which care for AIDS orphans. They have been active in delivering basic healthcare services as well as a community sensitization program which has educated community members about HIV and AIDS and about how to deal with the situation of caring for orphans in a collective manner. 

Due to this experience and their grassroots connections with the communities in which they work, the KIHEFO Foundation, in constant consultation with the project beneficiaries, has proposed this project as a sustainable strategy to support the community re-integration of AIDS orphans. This will allow them to be cared for by extended family members and to access the nutritional, economic and health resources they need to survive. 

This project is working with KIHEFO to improve the situation for orphans of the AIDS epidemic by providing:

• Counseling services for orphans and their extended families including clinical services to HIV + children.
• Nutritional support through training in diversified agriculture.
• Income support for families through training in sustainable agriculture and improved technology.
• Micro-finance programs to encourage diversified income generation in agricultural practices.  
• This project addresses the Millennium development goals of ending hunger, improving children’s health and combating HIV/AIDS.

Update from the field: January 2011

The project succeeded in training 24 leaders from eight community groups (640 households) in the Kigezi region on caring for HIV/AIDS orphans, improving agricultural techniques, and utilizing micro-credit loans to develop their own enterprises. These leaders trained local households, with a total of 6700 people benefitting from the project. 56 families accessed over $4000 through micro-loans, and provided nutritional and educational support for 160 HIV/AIDS orphans. Through the project, CFCA and KIHEFO effectively addressed the overwhelming rates of poverty, disease and malnutrition in the Kigezi region of Uganda. The project has succeeded in mobilizing community leadership, developing social support groups, providing agricultural training, and promoting social entrepreneurism, which is enabling families to better care for the increasing number of HIV/AIDS orphans in the region.

Update from the field: June 2010

This project has successfully expanded its reach in micro-credit initiatives to 73 families who have taken in orphans of AIDS. These families are also receiving nutrition counselling as well as ARV treatments for HIV positive children. 

A representative of Change for Children visited the project in March 2010 and these were his brief observations: 

I spent three days visiting with KIHEFO stakeholders including: KIHEFO’s director, members of its field staff, its office manager, several of its volunteers, and dozens of its community group members.  I also spent four additional days in the communities where KIHEFO operates asking community members who were not directly connected to KIHEFO about the organization.  Here are a few of my observations:

1) Organizational Health – I found the overall health of KIHEFO to be very strong.  Dr. Anguyo is a competent, hard-working, and well respected leader who has mobilized a large number of people to undertake KIHEFO’s activities with great commitment and passion.  In terms of the organization, I was especially impressed with:

General Meetings – I attended part of a general meeting where decisions were made by a wide group of well informed stakeholders.  I found staff members being held accountable for their activities by community members and recipients of KIHEFO services, and decisions being made with lively and respectful participation by many stakeholders.  The meeting was attended by roughly thirty people.

Volunteers – KIHEFO has an amazing ability to recruit and retain qualified volunteers to conduct much of its work.  Ugandan culture does not seem to support volunteerism the way many western cultures do, which makes this accomplishment all the more impressive.  I spent time touring communities with several volunteers who were deeply committed to their work and were highly qualified and well prepared.  Dr. Anguyo has also recruited many international volunteers to support his work.  While I was visiting, two European doctors were assisting with providing care in Dr. Anguyo’s clinic.

Community Support – KIHEFO has a large grass-roots support base which includes hundreds of families who belong to one of KIHEFO’s many community groups.  

2) KIHEFO’s Work – I found the quality of the work that KIHEFO was undertaking to be of especially high quality.  I was primarily interested in KIHEFO’s micro-finance project, but was also impressed by several other areas of their activities.  Key observations include:

Project Implementation – KIHEFO has done an excellent job preparing recipients of its micro-finance program.  Those requesting funds must work with a KIHEFO representative to fill in an application form, and must be part of a community group that will support the applicant and hold him/her accountable for the use of the funds and the repayment of capital (usually in non-monetary forms).  Successful applicants must demonstrate competence in the proposed use of the funds, and can receive specialized training with the help of KIHEFO.  Further, users of the micro-finance program are instructed in community building, household healthcare, nutrition, and HIV/AIDS.  

This rigorous path toward receiving funds ensures that only those who are committed to the program have access, and that they are fully educated on how best to use the funds.  I met with several people who were at various stages in the preparation process, and they took great pride in their business ideas, and in their new knowledge.  They were confident and well supported and committed to the overall goals of the program.

Sustainability – KIHEFO has instructed its community groups in many constructive ways.  One of the most important ways has been in self-sufficiency.  Each group is instructed to collect small amounts of money from its members on a regular basis and use that money as a lending pool for members.  One of the groups I visited had already saved over $150 – an impressive sum for rural Uganda.  The groups use the money to lend to individual members, or to undertake group activities.  Another group I met with had leased a 9 acre tract of land and was planting cabbage as a cash crop.  

KIHEFO has taught communities to be accountable for: raising their own funds; and for using them responsibly – with the hope that international funding (CFCA’s included) will augment this process.