1.Project Name:

Child, Early and Forced Marriage (CEFM)

A project to address CEFM and its impact on area adolescent youth, women and the community at large in the Agoro region of Uganda through school based activities, skills training and Community Conversation (CC)/ Community Dialogue (CD).

2.Location of Proposed Project: Northern Uganda

City/village: Agoro Sub County

District:Lamwo and Kitgum

Country: Uganda

3.Name of applicant organization/group:

Agoro Community Development Association-ACDA

Contact person:Otim Stephen

Title/function: Chaiman/Managing Director

Address: P. O. Box 403, Kitgum

Phone:+256 (0)782 707898

Fax: ______

E-mail

Organisation website:

4.Description of the applicant organization/group

Agoro Community Development Association (ACDA) is a secular community based organization formed in 2001 that assists the rural community in post conflict Northern Uganda. ACDA was founded as a consequence of the ongoing disruption due to decades of internal conflict that was threatening the social fabric of the area. In 2006 it was registered as a company (registration number 130706) and in 2006 it was incorporated as a charitable company (registration number 78188).

ACDA is operational in the Northern Uganda districts of Kitgum and Lamwo, approximately 460km to the North of the capital Kampala. The districts are on the border with South Sudan and are part of the region traditionally known as Acholiland. The main operational office is in Kitgum town with field offices in villages in Lamwo District that co-ordinate local project activities.

ACDA membership is open to the entire population of the Agoro sub-region of Uganda. The organisation provides services through ongoing project activities to the entire Agoro region community regardless of whether they are formal members or not.

Activities are prioritized following dialogue with community residents. The program is structured in 4 Priority Areas that address the core issues facing the population”

  • Health & Welfare,
  • Human Rights,
  • Education
  • Livelihood.

MISSION

“To provide a voice for the oppressed & disadvantaged members of the community in the region & to lobby for support & undertake projects to alleviate and improve their situation."

Strategic priorities are to overcome the effects of the Lord’s Resistance Army on the area population that have had a devastating and lasting impact on virtually every household in the area.

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

The overarching goal is for ACDA to continue to be recognized as a major force in the area bringing about change for area residents and to be seen by all as a trusted institution that continues to support and enhance the quality of life for all.

ACDA’s main objectives are to:

  • Re-establish the community long term sustainability through continuous improvement of the community’s social and economic status
  • Provide training that gives community members, especially women and youth, knowledge about human & property rights, gender equality, democratic and economic processes & freedoms & how they can seek justice/equality by holding their leaders accountable.
  • increase both formal and informal education and vocational training to vulnerable groups, with skills and knowledge that they can use to improve their quality of life. This includes new agricultural techniques & skills based training that will help women & youth develop economic independence
  • provide children with the fundamental basic needs and opportunities for recreation to enhance their future prospects

VALUES:

  • Accountability and transparency
  • Team work
  • Respect for diversity
  • Custodianship
  • Approachability.

5.Type of organization/group:

Local non-governmental, community and not-for-profit organizations,

6.Explanation of the project:

The proposed project is a continuation of project activities based previous activities implemented by ACDA following identified community needs. That project, which is ongoing , proved to be very successful at reaching out to youth and community members across the region served by ACDA and initiating the process of change in community outlook and practice in the area of child marriage. The work proposed in this proposal is an extension of that work, building on the lessons learned during its implementation to ensure even more effective project work can be completed. In this project, ACDA will take advantage of the existing planning and implementation capabilities that have been developed and will use them to extend the project to additional schools and communities in the region. Within the proposed project activities, changes have been made that will take advantage of lessons learned and will focus on those areas where the results were most positive.

The goal is to help to empower women and adolescents girls using a community dialogue approach to protect the rights of girls and young mothers against violence and harmful practices.

The project will also put emphasis on social change using the process of community advocacy to address gender inequality as a root cause of Child Marriage and violence against girls and young mothers. It will do this by building the capacity of influential members of the community like Teachers, Cultural leaders and Religious leaders who are duty bearers in building a protective environment conducive to the realization of the rights of the girls to be free from violence, with emphasis on child marriage and their impacts on adolescent girls.

The project will focus activities on 7 communities located along the border with South Sudan. Residents of these communities are members of the Acholi Ethnic grouping, but their customs and dialect varies from the rest of the Acholi tribe due to frequent contact with the neighbouring tribes of S. Sudan. Within the Agoro region, which is one of the most disadvantaged in Uganda, these communities are the most needy as they continue to be impacted by the disturbances in South Sudan. Many of the residents that will be included in the project are refugees from conflict there.

In parallel with onsite activities, increased use of computer and communications technology, especially social media, will be utilised to help extend the reach of the project. Though its use it is anticipated that indirect benefit of the project can reach up to 200,000 people along the Border with 20,000 people directly benefiting from the project due to community outreaches.

7.PROJECT STRUCTURE & ACTIVITIES

  • Mobilization, Training and Sensitization of women’s groups, community leaders and peer clubs in area schools.
  • establish permanent groups that will be able to act as area champions to carry out ongoing project activity within their community’s post project completion.
  • Organizing workshops and training sessions for women and adolescents through the engagement of subject matter experts (SME)
  • development of content and materials to be used for sessions, identification and registration of beneficiaries to access the material and logistics such as venue rental, transport, etc necessary for sessions to be held. Materials will be held in a central location and be available for access physically and electronically by area residents
  • Advocacy/ sensitization campaigns using Community Dialogue.
  • Public sessionslead by trained facilitators on cultural norms present in the Agoro Region that endanger or negatively impact the lives of girls and young mothers
  • build solidarity networks for sustaining the promotion of community rights.
  • A specific focus will on the factors that contribute to the high rate of child and enforced marriage in the area, along with dialogue on community consensus on how to deal with the issue,
  • Conducting media campaigns (social media, radio talk shows) and community outreaches. Develop and disseminate IEC materials on sexuality rights and gender roles
  • Conduct interface meetings with key duty bearers to lobby that they should publicly challenge sexual violence and harmful practices against women and girls.
  • Supporting young girls through reproductive health training and provision of scholastic materials.
  • The goal of this work is to help ensure that girls are able to be able to complete their education
  • Providing vocational training to vulnerable groups of women with skills and knowledge that they can use to improve their quality of life.
  • the establishment of Village Savings and Loans schemes that the groups can use to provide a means of saving and to fund ongoing activities.
  • Training on new agricultural techniques & skills based training that will help women & child mothers develop economic independence
  • Identification and selection of a location to be used as model farm where the techniques included on the vocational training can be continues and used as a demonstration sited after the completion of the project
  • Engagement of subject matter experts and trainees for training sessions.

EXPECTED PROJECT RESULTS

  • Complete training sessions of a minimum of 50 key influential individuals in the community which include 30 members from women’s groups, 10 members of the traditional chiefdom and 10 teachers
  • 200 of adolescent girls and women who have received training in vocational skills, income generation, financial literacy training, savings and credit literacy & other life skills (e.g., critical thinking, communication, decision making, problem solving)
  • Establish 20 peer groups in schools that will provide peer support, provide life skills lessons within their schools and distribute information on sexual and reproductive health rights, etc.The group will include 60 girls and 40 boys of ages 10 to 18 of which 50% will be vulnerable boys and girls.
  • Hold 10 public Community Dialogue sessions attended by community members with agenda topics on child marriage, human rights of girls, girls’ education, and violence prevention (e.g., campaigns, rallies, participatory discussions).
  • 250 adolescents which include 150 girls and 100 boys will be supported through the school based activities in 10 primary schools and another 500 will indirectly benefit through peer to peer outreach programs.
  • model farm operational 3 months after project start.

EXPECTED PROJECT ACHIEVEMENTS

  • Increased engagement of key regional decision-makers and influencers through training and stronger positioning and advocacyon Harmful Practices against girls
  • Vulnerable women and girls participate more in decisions that affect them, including regarding marriage.
  • Adolescent girls are empowered to become agents of change against violence and Harmful Practices

PROJECT TIMELINE

  • The core activities will be completed over a period of twelve months from when we receive funding. Post project completion activities that are structured as ongoing, such as peer groups, the model farm and women’s groups, will remain active

CHALLENGES DURING PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION AND HOW TO DEAL WITH THEM

  • We expect the challenges of communications since we are located in a remote area where services are poor. However, we expect to use local communication such cameras, phones and FM radios as much as possible. While internet use in the area is not high, a key part of the project will the use of social media, such as Facebook and the ACDA website to distribute materials and information to the entire community.
  • Political interference is a concern. We will meet and harmonise with regional political leaders about the project activities and seek to engage key members in the delivery of the project.

FUTURE ASPECTS OF THE PROJECT WHICH ARE CONSIDERED MOSTIMPORTANT

There is agreement in ACDA and the community at large that keeping young girls in school is essential because this decreases the risk of early child marriage. Supporting women with education and income generating activities will improve their income level giving them the opportunity to provide children with scholastic materials and reduce the tendency of forcing young girls into marriage.

POSSIBLE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OR BENEFITS

  • No environmental impact is expected.
  • Environmental Benefits are anticipated through training on agriculture practices. ie instead of continuously clearing bushes for more land, promotion of appropriate technologies like ox-ploughs and discouraging the traditional slash and burn agriculture.

8.Origin and Context:

Agoro sub-county, like the rest of Northern Uganda is recovering from a conflict that particularly affected young people, especially girls who were sexually exploited for a number of reasons. The impact will take long to cure since the majority of the population is very young. Those affected by the war are now becoming parents with no survival skills; hence the lack of education, lack of role models means what the young faced during the insurgency is being passed onto the younger generation

Because Agoro is isolated, there are competing priorities in post conflict reconstruction that tends to push the rights of the girl child to education away from other priorities. This therefore indirectly encourages early child marriage to bring in dowry money to help poor families and the education of the boy child.

Poverty also affirms the cultural practices of marrying off girls as a common custom! This also encourages the rights abuse of girls as it denies them from engaging in opportunities and denying the rights to ownership of properties such as, land and even right to education that enables them to chance to learn skills and develop their personalities.

Girls’ bodies are being harmed due to early child bearing when they are still children. The health risks and consequences are costly to the individuals involved, the community and costs money in health.

The harmful consequences include separation from family and friends, lack of freedom to interact with peers and participate in community activities and decrease opportunities to education.

Once married off early, the child mother becomes bonded labour or enslavement, commercial sexual exploitation and violence against their rights. And due to lack of knowledge on many rights, the girls automatically lose their sexuality rights and forced to have sex any time or with no contraception. This exposes the young mother to such serious health risks as premature pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections and increasingly, HIV/AIDs and hepatitis B and as a result, many of them die when they are still young.

In Agoro region where the community experienced more than 20 years of LRA conflict and existence of frequent tribal conflict, illiteracy and poverty is the most extreme condition affecting the communities with low level of education among the young girls, they are sometimes forced into early marriage due to peer pressure.

Despite the visible physical damage and the persistent discrimination to young girls, little effort and progress has been made toward ending the practice of child marriage. This condition is more common in isolated and remote locations like Agoro where inhabitants are deeply rooted in traditional means of survival and away from active law and order where even case of rape, defilement, forced marriage and violence against women are resolved using the community legal systems headed by clan chiefs. Often this form of justice does little or nothing to protect the girls.

The project proposal is as result of the lessons learned and experience from the current program focusing on empowering boys and girls and the greater community and findings we made during our outreach programs with isolated communities. There is agreement in the area on the major activities that need to be completed. However, the extreme level of poverty makes it essential that outside assistance be provided to help complete activities to correct the situation.

Three main gaps that where highlighted during the planning phase of the project include;

  • Lack of knowledge and access to the formal system mandated to protect boys and girls
  • Gender Base Violence (GBV) and gender inequality, comprising the ability of the changes agents to provide informal system to protect girls and boys against harmful practices
  • Lack of economic incentives which has resulted into high level of poverty
  • Gaps in support services for girls affected by the harmful practices

The project will:

  • seek to challenge current, traditional, social norms and attitudes linked to gender which teach men and women to act in certain ways. This gendered stereotyping leads to women (who are influential change agents in Child marriage) to be excluded from decision making in household and exclusive representation in community and local structures.
  • seek to empower girls and boys to build self-esteem and right awareness, and increased live skills

In its past work, ACDA has shown that it has the ability to be an agent of change that works with integrity and honesty. We are hopeful that we will be able to continue the work.

9.Beneficiaries and Participants:

BENEFICIARIES

  • 100 adolescents which include 60 girls and 40 boys and compose of 40 members of the Peer group, age 10 to 18 and 50% vulnerable boys and girls will receive training
  • 50 key influential individual in the community which include 30 members of the women group and 10 members of the traditional chiefdom and 10 teachers
  • 250 adolescents which include 150 girls and 100 boys will be supported through the school based activities in 10 primary schools and another 500 will indirectly benefit through peer to peer outreach programs.

The beneficiaries shall participate in the project through peer group advocacy activities. Meanwhile, men and women will be brought together in open forum to discuss issue that affect their daily lives. Beneficiaries will also participate through workshops and seminars.