The projects that we implement are real projects involving real people. Our projects aim to help single parents overcome the challenges wrought upon them by poverty and HIV/AIDS. Our projects include advocacy initiatives, income generation, HIV/AIDS- awareness, prevention and care activities and community-led efforts to provide care and support for orphans and vulnerable children. Our practical projects help beneficiary single parents to improve their household incomes, raise their children successfully and escape from desperate conditions of poverty. These projects also help single parents to participate more fully in the lives of their communities and challenge the discrimination that often prevents them from advancing their rights and participating in local policy decision making processes.
Ultimately, SPAU projects empower the beneficiary single parents and their families to become socio-economically self-dependent.
Mama Issa’s story
“Mama Issa” is a SPAU member in Nsumbi-Ganda, Nabweru subcounty. She became an inspiration to many in SPAU by using the few hens that SPAU gave to her as capital for an income generating project, to improve her quality of life and build her self-esteem. Mama Issa told SPAU how she couldn’t afford to pay her son’s school fees prior to starting the poultry project. With her committment and enthusiasm, five months into the project, Mama Issa was collecting a tray of 30 eggs every two days and selling it for UGX 4,500 (approx. $2.50). This helped her to eventually pay for her son’s UGX60,000 (approx. $32.00) per term school fees, as well as his national exam registration. Using proceeds from the same project, Mama Issa also set up her own brick-making project within the same year. Mama Issa now leads a newly-formed group of 20 single parents in her community. As a person who is open about her HIV+ status, Mama Issa also encourages other members in the group who are living with HIV to ‘live positively’ during their fortnightly meetings as she shares her skills in keeping poultry.