BUILDING A FUTURE FOR AIDS ORPHANS IN UGANDA

THROUGH MICROCREDIT

Caring for the 1.9 million Ugandan children who have lost either one or both parents to AIDS is a significant challenge.

One out of every four families in Uganda cares for a child orphaned by AIDS.

With the technical expertise of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) in microcredit and the financial support of the Belgian Survival Fund, the Ugandan Women’s Effort to Save Orphans (UWESO) -- a grassroots non-governmental organization – has helped 33,000 orphans and their adoptive families build promising futures with the help of microcredit.

Since 1986, UWESO has helped thousands of orphans rebuild their lives through building on the capacities that they, their guardians, and their communities possess. Among other resources, microcredit remains key to unlocking these capacities vital to healing the wounds of lives and communities ravaged by AIDS.

Beyond the shock of losing one or both parents, significant questions of survival await these orphans. If they are of a young age, who will take care of them? And, for those taking care of them, how will they do so? If they are older, how will they support themselves?

Young orphans are often taken in by their aunts and uncles, and even their grandparents. Sometimes, a neighbor may adopt them.  Regardless of who becomes the child’s guardian, taking care of an orphan in Uganda can be difficult.

A decade of political and civil strife in Uganda that began in the mid-70s has left the economy in shambles and the rural population, roughly 90%, in even deeper poverty. The per capita income of Uganda is $276/year and, with the addition of orphans, 8-12 children may be found in a given household. 

Thus, adding another mouth to feed and mind to educate can constitute a real challenge.

UWESO helps single and adoptive foster parents provide for orphaned children through microcredit. Since the inception of UWESO’s Savings and Credit Scheme in 1996, UWESO has given approximately 11,500 small loans ranging from $20 to $500 to help parents and foster parents increase their incomes.  97% of these loans have gone to women.

In order to assure that the opportunity of education remains within reach of adopted orphans, UWESO provides tuition assistance to enable nearly 2,000 young children to attend primary school. One year of primary school costs nearly $145 and adopted orphans are often the first to be denied education when a foster parent cannot afford to educate all of the children in his/her care.

For older children up to 18 years old, UWESO provides vocational training. In 2-3 years, these children attain academic qualification in trades such as carpentry, masonry, leather work, mechanics, metal fabrication, baking, and tailoring. These children can also receive informal training from local practicing artisans for 6-9 months through UWESO. Over 400 orphans have benefited from these training programs, the success of which speaks for itself insofar as 95% of these children are self-supporting.

Initially, UWESO operated as a relief organization and targeted children orphaned by the civil strife in Uganda. It provided these orphans with food, clothing, blankets, and other basic necessities. It also tried to link orphans with members of their extended families for long-term care. 

Yet, this approach failed to resolve the long-term questions relating to the future of these children. In order to more effectively and efficiently meet the needs of the orphaned children, IFAD and BSF have helped UWESO transform into a development organization with increased and improved services. 

IFAD drew on 20 years of experience as a rural microcredit pioneer to help UWESO incorporate cutting-edge microcredit techniques into its efforts.  These innovative approaches include (a) “group lending” that engages well-sensitized members who are aware of available investment opportunities; (b) training community members and leaders to upgrade know-how, business enterprises, and loan administration; (c) financing activities that members want, rather than promoting specific activities; (d) using savings mobilization as an entry in order to build a culture of savings; (e) starting new beneficiaries with small loans and gradually increasing the amounts with successful repayments; and (f) ensuring close supervision of loan portfolios, with continued training and re-training for members and supervisory staff.

A BSF grant of $1.45 million also helped finance an expansion of UWESO staff and the creation of new branch offices. Through the provision of logistical support to these new offices (including vehicles, office rental and equipment), UWESO was able to decentralize its operations to be more responsive to the needs of orphans and their communities. UWESO was also able to expand its services to include primary school sponsorships, vocational training programs, and microcredit to help the orphans and their adoptive families cope.

Working together, IFAD, the BSF, UWESO and its members have achieved dramatic results.  Orphans and their foster families have seen increased daily meal intakes and more regular consumption of meat. Not only have they also upgraded their homes, but they are also able to sustain payment of school fees and charges, diversify their enterprises, and buy such “luxuries” as blankets, mattresses and clothing.

Based on the performance of the first project intervention, and of the Savings and Credit program in particular, the BSF has recently approved a second grant of $2.5 million for the consolidation of orphan support and the expansion of microcredit activities to other areas in Uganda.

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The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) – a Rome-based specialized agency of the United Nations - was established in 1977 with the unique mandate to combat hunger and rural poverty in the low-income food-deficit regions of the world and to improve the livelihoods of rural poor people on a sustainable basis. IFAD operates as an international financial institution (IFI), and approaches its mandate through financing innovative, cost-effective, and replicable projects that are designed to increase household food security through increasing productivity of on and off farm activities. IFAD was the first IFI to fund the groundbreaking Grameen Bank, the seminal microcredit institution of Bangladesh. IFAD has participated in roughly 300 projects with microcredit components and has committed over $1 billion in financial services and credit to the rural poor. This promotion of microcredit has benefited 20 million people directly and another 40 million people indirectly.

The Belgian Survival Fund (BSF) was created in 1983 by the Belgian Government and endowed with $280 million to combat hunger and poverty. BSF operates primarily through a Joint Program with the World Health Organization, the United Nations Children’s Fund and the United Nations Development Program with IFAD as lead agency.

UWESO is non-political and nondenominational. UWESO began as the brainchild of Janet Kataha Museveni, the First Lady of Uganda, during her exile from in 1986. Over 7,500 women across Uganda have joined UWESO.  They volunteer their time to foster orphans, monitor the orphans in their villages, manage school sponsorship programs, implement income generating activities for the benefit of needy orphans, and campaign for orphan support and legal protections.