Youth and Women for Opportunity Uganda – YWOU is a non-profit organization committed to transforming the entire Teso region through the power of education, mentoring, and sports for development programs.
Our mission is to break the cycle of poverty in rural Uganda, with a particular focus on removing barriers for girls and women facing poverty and oppression. YWOU’s initiatives encompass the construction of schools and vocational skill training centers across the region, as well as contributions to sustainable development programs.
In each of the Teso region’s 5 counties, we implement comprehensive education programs that promote self-sustaining economic development. Our efforts include providing clean drinking water and solar power to off-grid rural communities, offering scholarships to bright but underprivileged children – especially girls at risk of dropping out of school – and delivering vocational and educational technology training. Additionally, we empower aspiring entrepreneurs through business development support.
Through our multifaceted approach, we are working tirelessly to create a brighter future for the marginalized communities of Teso, uplifting them through education and enabling self-reliance and sustainable growth.
Although Primary and Secondary Education is free in Uganda, many families in the Teso Sub-region live in extreme and abject poverty and cannot afford the necessary requirements (uniforms, scholastic materials, assistive and supportive equipment) to enable their children with disabilities to attend school. Families often prioritize sending boys to school so that they can learn skills to generate income. Thus, many girls do not have a chance to attend school and gain an education and skills to support themselves.
The most vulnerable girls are often the least visible. Girls who are orphans, living in rural areas and slums, from ethnic and indigenous minorities, have disabilities, or have been subject to forced labour, defiled, child marriage, trafficking or other forms of exploitation may be the most excluded and most at risk of losing their right to protection, freedom, and identity. The project will be open to girls regardless of their race, color, national origin, sex, age, religion, geographic location, socio-economic status, disability, sexual orientation or gender identity.
Among 3,000 school going girls, pregnancy is the primary driver of girl’s dropout from school during the pandemic, but pregnancy is a symptom of underlying, acute, economic vulnerabilities and is augmented by situations of social and physical isolation that are often mutually reinforcing and transactional sex for basic goods (such as food, clothing, scholarships and scholastic materials, and menstrual hygiene products) is the primary cause of unintended pregnancies in their communities. Economic precarity leading to transactional sex and unintended pregnancies is the most common pathway leading to girls’ dropout, additionally the primary barriers to girls’ schooling are toxic homes, school and community environments that view pregnancy from a moral lens, these barriers exist within a tapestry of vulnerabilities, and complex challenges facing girls during the pandemic such as.
Physical Barriers that keep girls from engaging in remote learning and physically keep them from accessing school, this include unequal access to remote learning technologies, unsupportive learning environments, and relocation and/or displacement.
Economic Barriers such as loss of guardian or guardian income, leading to a lack of basic needs, scholarships, increasing pressure to earn income, food security, and most uniformly lack of financial resources for school materials and fees.
Health Barriers primarily unintended pregnancies, and health outcomes associated with girls’ experiences of both sexual and physical violence, violence against pregnant girls, reduced access to sexual and reproductive health information
Social Barriers centering around the stigmatization and isolation of pregnant girls both at home and at school such as hostile home environments and toxic school and peer culture, as well as early and forced marriage.
Personal Barriers characterized especially by an acute loss of hope for the future, increasing social, economic and academic anxieties.
During crises, parents, children and young people frequently identify education as a priority need but as governments race to contain the virus, focus is being directed away from this essential service. Yet education presents opportunities to build resilience, tackle gender inequalities, nurture more cohesive and peaceful societies, and mitigate the impact of future disasters.
Many schools across the globe have closed which reduces access to quality education and exacerbates vulnerabilities that existed prior to the COVID-19 crisis. Girls, particularly those in displaced settings, will be acutely affected. Even where schools remain open, there is a risk of increasing dropout rates among girls as domestic and caring responsibilities grow. As families face economic strains as a result of COVID-19, negative coping mechanisms including CEFM and child labour risk further dropouts. When schools do eventually reopen, some children and young people, including married and pregnant girls and young women, will find it difficult to return.
The overt focus on COVID-19 as a health crisis is eroding the protective structures of education systems and is putting children’s wellbeing, development and learning at risk. Schools keep children safe from hostile environments and protected from risks including adolescent pregnancy, gender-based violence, trafficking, transactional sex, exploitation and recruitment into armed groups. They are also a space to disseminate life-saving messages and teach children the skills they need to thrive. The impact on learning outcomes is yet to be determined but the crisis will likely set many children back, particularly if access to alternative learning opportunities is not supported. Critical services such as the provision of social protection, school meals and deworming programmes often stop when learning facilities close. Unless alternative mechanisms are put in place to reach children in their homes, lives will be lost.
