Beneficiaries

We are very excited to report the end of what has been a successful empowerment project in the urban ‘villages’ of Busega and Nansana West.

Through a skills empowerment project taking place across two urban poor communities in central Uganda, SPAU has imparted new life-changing skills to at least 50 single parents – mostly young women who have been abandoned with children by their spouses/fathers of their children. The skills include business education and tailoring. Half of the beneficiaries are currently involved in new gainful self-employment. The other half are making preparations to enter into joint commercial ventures based on providing a tailoring service to their respective communities.

This project was largely possible through the generous contribution of Tools For Self Reliance and SPAU trainers, Ms. Mary Kawalya and Ms. Justine Namusisi, who poured their lives into orienting single parents with the practical skills over the past 12 months.

As an incentive to her group’s hard-work, SPAU is supporting Rose and her group of single parents to identify new markets for their crafts. To buy Rose’s products online, click here. Read more about Rose’s story.

Rose

Fund raising for this initiative is currently on-going. To support these plans, please get in touch with our partners who are co-ordinating this initiative here.

We were very honoured to be a part of the 01st September 2010 Kampala screening of Christa Graf’s ‘Memory Books‘ Film on Memory Work experiences here in Uganda. Memory Work is one of our key areas of focus in the fight against HIV/AIDS. It involves family-centred psychosocial responses to mitigiating the impact of HIV/AIDS on children, such as the use of good communication skills between parents/guardians and children/orphans; disclosing one’s HIV status, planning for the future and memory book writing. Memory Books in particular, are a way for families to come to terms with the inevitable death that they face. Christa Graf’s documentary film centres around two main families, describing the Memory Book development process and its benefits through the eyes of a parent, an orphan, a health worker and the community in which they live. The Memory Book film has already won at least 8 international awards so far across Europe. Currently, plans are underway to show the Memory Book Film in WAKISO, SPAU’s Memory Work project area. Special thanks to the Uganda-German Cultural centre for organising the film’s screening in Kampala.

SPAU in partnership with Cooperaid has been implementing a Memory Work project in Wakiso district, central Uganda over the past 12 months. This project has directly benefitted at least 150 families affected by HIV/AIDS in this region.

Matilda (not real name) is a single parent of 3 children who lives in a small village in Wakiso district. Matilda did not know her HIV status until the beginning of the SPAU Memory Work project in Wakiso in 2009. When she was first visited by a SPAU-trained community-based counsellor in September 2009, she was encouraged to go for an HIV blood test at the nearby regional government hospital, where she was diagnosed as being HIV positive. At the testing centre, Matilda received both pre- and post-test counselling. However, she spoke of the regular home-based counselling that she received from the SPAU-trained HIV/AIDS community-based counsellor as the best form of support and care that she had ever received in all her life because it kept her from (in her words:) “abandoning my children”. Over successive weeks, the SPAU-trained counsellor also helped to orient Matilda in various strategies in Memory Work.

Memory work can be defined as the deliberate setting up of a safe space in which to contain the telling of a life story. This space might be a room, the shade under a tree, a drawing or a map, or a memory box, basket or book. In therapeutic contexts, the scope of memory work is not necessarily restricted to the past, its purpose is often to deal with difficulties in the present, and its main orientation often tends towards planning and the future.

Matilda was also shown the purpose for keeping a memory book and a few months later, she began to write a Memory Book for the youngest of her children, a 6-year old boy. Matilda now believes that this Memory Book can be very helpful for her child’s future, especially in informing him about both of his parents’ heritage and her future plans for his life, even when she has passed on. Integrating practical income generation support with the Memory Work, the SPAU project has now supported Matilda to set up a small market stall by the roadside from which she now retails foodstuffs and charcoal from traders who are travelling to the towns along the Wakiso-Kampala highway. This activity is not simply a source of income for Matilda, it is also something that helps to keep her mind busy and active and away from the negativity of how she has been affected by HIV/AIDS. “I want to think about a bright future for my children” are Matilda’s parting words.

I am very proud to report to you that SPAU is in the final stages of successfully completing the Wakiso Memory Work Project 2009/10.

Regards,

Paul