SPAU – Single Parents Association of Uganda

SPAU has received a donation of sewing machines and training materials for a skills empowerment project from Tools for Self Reliance. The project is targeted at empowering 50 young and middle-aged single mothers in Nansana and Busega communities of Kampala with tailoring skills over the next 6 months. This project shall go a long way to enabling these single mothers to perform their roles as ‘sole bread-winners’ in their respective families, better, as a result of earning an extra income when they begin to make commercial use of their newly gained education and skills.

Our partner organisation – Advantage Africa – shall be processing support received from the Guernsey Government towards a small single parents’ project in Kyebando village, Nansana sub-county (WAKISO) and in Ggaba village, Makindye sub-county (KAMPALA) through SPAU over the next 12 months.

The Single Parents’ Integrated Project aims to address poverty and stigma of at least 300 disadvantaged families in Makindye and Kyebando so that they can improve their incomes and health, care for their children/orphans living in their homes and advocate for increased opportunities for development in their communities.

We are very honoured to be working with Advantage Africa’s new Programme Officer, Ms. Laura Anne Snoxell, on this project.

SPAU is currently training more than 50 selected community members from across 6 villages in Wakiso district, to serve as HIV/AIDS communiy-based counsellors and skilled health workers. The training is being facilitated by the National Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS – NACWOLA, in Kakiri town, Wakiso district as part of SPAU’s WAKISO MEMORY WORK PROJECT 2009/10. The successful candidates will then be further equipped with Memory Work skills and facilitated to provide a counselling service to 1,000 beneficiaries who have been identified as affected by HIV/AIDS; in Gobero, Katiti, Gala-Nnalya, Nampunge, and Nansana villages in Wakiso district.

some of the SPAU trainees

SPAU has partnered with the Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC) to orient its single parent group leaders on basic Human Rights and also to equip them with a working knowledge on what the law in Uganda says about women’s property and child custody rights. The single parent leaders, it is expected, shall then be able to mobilise their respective group members to share this knowledge and draw up an appropriate response strategy to use in the event that any of their members is put at risk of having their rights abused. We believe that fighting ignorance is the first step towards an individual’s holistic development. Know Your Rights.

SPAU in partnership with Advantage Africa conducted a 5-day residential training last week, on Memory Work for single parent leaders across selected SPAU areas of operation in central Uganda. The training was intended to equip resourceful single parent leaders with skills to enable them to build a foundation for enhanced responses to HIV/AIDS in their communities through better preparation for future challenges in life in a set of programs known as “Memory Work”.

Memory Work is a community approach to address fundamental issues around HIV communication in the family which focuses on: improving communication between guardians and parents living with HIV and their children; disclosing HIV status and other important information; succession planning and writing important family history in a memory book.

More news on this development to follow soon…

Advantage Africa partners: Paul, Sarah and Zack, are away on a week-long workshop with other Advantage Africa development actors across East Africa, intended to equip participants with skills to strengthen community responses to HIV/AIDS and disability in their operational areas.