EDUCATION
Lamwo Rock Foundation is currently
sponsoring 5 students at Secondary schools, 6 at
vocational school, and 12 at primary schools. All this
students and pupils are at different schools within Uganda, of their choice or
where the foundation has seen education is viable and achievable. We pay their
school fees, provide them with scholastic materials, provide transport for
going and coming from schools, provide counseling and guidance.
For the secondary and vocational
students, we started the sponsorship in the academic year 2013.
This was with funding from the membership fee and community donation to help
support Education vision of Lamwo Rock Foundation. However, with the increased
demand from the community, the foundation was forced to add in more students
especially the candidate class who were not going to sit for their final exams
due to lack of funding. We added 5 more, 3
in senior four and 2 in senior
six for academic year 2013. Upon completion the foundation will
see what next for the students; this will depend on the availability of
funding. Once the funding is there, the foundation will allow them
to continue to the next level of education.
The vacation students will
have a one year course whereby they will be asked to practice by the foundation
before they upgrade. They will be provided with the start up kits during their
graduation to enable them begin micro-business.
For the primary pupils they still
have a long way to go since some have started from lower level of Education.
However, Lamwo Rock Foundation's vision is to see that these pupils study until
they attain a level of education which can make them live independent life.
Therefore Lamwo Rock Foundation will continue to look for educational funding
which will pay these pupils to the higher level of education. And after
finishing primary 7, they will be given chance to chose either Vocational
training or secondary school. This will enable them to choose for their dreamed
path along the academic line.
Future Plan for Education:
The Foundation still sees many
children who dwell in need for education, those who still lies
in absolutes poverty, those without the parents
and guidance ...and they needs education. The foundation still needs
to give these children hope and light for the futures. Therefore we will
continue enrolling more of these children to joint schools; we will continue to
look for kind helping hands which can help make future of these children
bright. Our approach will remain the community approach whereby the
communities through our social workers volunteers identify
the vulnerable children and orphans to be sponsored.
Also
there is already a plan for construction of a vocational training center and
primary school for the OVC. The community has allocated a land to the
foundation and they have laid brick for setting up vocational center, this will
start if the foundation gets some fund from other source to help get other
materials and the labor cost of the building.
Small Scale business:
Through the
donation and membership fees, vulnerable women especially those one living
with HIV/AIDS have been provided with the capital for starting
small scales business in Parapono parish. The project started at the beginning
of the year, the women pays back the money monthly with an interest of 10% with the reason that at the end of
the project, they should be able to add one person into the project; the money
they pay back, at the end of the year will be given to the next lot inform of
community revolving loan with additional 1 person as the result of their interest.
The program has started in Parapono parish, with 10 women from
one village (Guria East village). Each woman received 100,000 shilling
cash. This is a pilot; more 10 women from the 5 village will join the program at the
beginning of 2014 given that all the women pay back their
money and manage it successfully. This program is directly managed by loan
management committee selected by the community steered by the Lamwo Rock Foundation.
The women
meet to share ideas, experiences, and opinion on how the business is helping
them in positive living. They collect and give the money they get to one
another weekly to help boost and strengthen their saving businesses. Lamwo Rock
Foundation have designed curriculum for training and capacity build the group,
the receive guidance and counselling on how they should continue with the
project successfully.
Future Plan
for Small Scale Business:
Lamwo Rock
Foundation is planning to have many women involved in this program; we need the
program to cover the whole of Lokung sub-county by 2020. We need more women to
be trained on this entrepreneurship because we see that this program
is the best tool to fight poverty, and once women are involved in poverty
fight, the whole family will be alleviated.
And the
biggest dream is for these women to start micro-finance bank, which will act as
a role model and mode of saving for the whole district, northern Uganda and
Uganda at large.
Lamwo Rock
Foundation planned to set up training and production units for dress making,
bee farming, tailoring, art and craft, catering, hair dressing. Training and
Production Unit is a combination of Training, Production, Marketing and saving
for the beneficiaries which makes it more sustainable project since it is
initiated at the grass root level using available local resources.
HIV/AIDS
Currently Lamwo Rock Foundation is doing HIV/AIDS program at the
community level. Our community programs include:
1. Community
sensitization on HIV/AIDS by our peer educators before individual counselling
and testing
2. Visiting
to our clients to see how they are coping up with drugs. During this visit,
they get counselled and encouraged to continue taking medication, they are also
advised on the nutrition so that they can gain weight faster.
Other than
those, we have some specific activities we are using for sensitization of the
community:
a. HIV/AIDS
and sport
On December 1st, World
AIDS Day, people all over the world shows solidarity for the fight against
this terrible disease. This day helps to raise awareness about the disease that
still does not have a cure, through educational activities, foundations or
memorial events.
Lamwo Rock Foundation have chosen to
celebrate this day through sport, we have organized a sport activity among
youth of Lamwo District to help raise awareness on HIV/AIDS. This competition wills
comments in the month of November 2013, 1st of December the winner teams will play in Lalak
Stadium to see which team will take the cup. HIV/AIDS messages will be passed
to the crowd throughout the events until the final day. There will be HIV/AIDS
team with banners, posters, left let, and Vedio show. They will come along with
the counselor to counseled and test the people who are willing to receive the
services.
b. Developing
HIV/AIDS literature and education materials through
creative writing
Lamwo Rock Foundation believes that
life’s lessons are embedded in the literature we read, and the only way we are
able to truly explore and engage them is in creative writing. With writing we
are persuaded to translate the smallest instances into concrete words. It is a
challenge that will improve approaches to day-to-day activities and, most
importantly, help make one grow deeply and comprehend one own notion of
humanity.
Putting HIV/AIDS into papers is the
better way of understanding it. Lamwo Rock Foundation would like to picture
HIV/AIDS in form of: fiction, non-fiction, prose, essay and poetry yearly
beginning 2014. We need HIV/AIDS to be dabbled and experimented for better
understanding. This will make the community to have syntactical choices and
decide that whatever they do gear toward the prevention and ending the disease.
We need the information on HIV/AIDS which has been flying on air for so long as
ordinary sound of words to be stitched together in a sentence which will have
reason behind its forever memory.
There should be some kind of twisted
maturity that will come with writing about HIV/AIDS and carries into the reality
that we have seen but had not thought about it. We will want writing that will
make HIV/AIDS sudden, it should be too spontaneous, and we want to find enough
of reasons which can stay with the community to help them stop this pandemic.
These written words should be mildly more cautious and conscious to these
messages we will communicate; it should translate into conversation and
presentations, and valuable “real world.”
All
Ugandan youth from 18 to 35 years will be invited to participate in this writing
competition. Five best manuscripts will be selected from the pool. The winners
will be our ambassador during our HIV/AIDS outreaches. Their manuscripts will
be published and translated into Acholi Language. This will be read in the
called gathering during the outreaches. Some manuscript will be performed as
drama. This message target up 16,000
people of Lamwo district. These materials once published will be sold to raise
money for the sustainability of the project. As well during outreach, fund will
be raised.
c. Wadwokotwero’ Acholi word meaning ‘giving
back the power’
This project will
be launched in 2014. The aim of the ‘wadwokotwero’ is to empower communities to
develop community-initiated, sustainable, and innovative responses to the HIV
and AIDS epidemic. We shall achieve this by providing training and mentoring to
groups within the community.
Wadwokotwero
mobilises and empowers the elderly women who have formed a network known as the
‘dayo’ (Acholi word for ‘grandmother’), by providing mentoring and training.
The support they will receive will help them build knowledge around HIV and
AIDS, develop counseling skills, acquire home-based care qualifications,
and get involved in national discussions affecting the elderly and the orphan
they are taking care of.
Wadwokotwero will
be implemented by the Lamwo Rock Foundation to develop and expand the project
and ensure that it is meeting the needs of local communities. In the 5 rural communities we work in, we
shall be reaching an estimated 1,800
people directly and 16,000
indirectly.
The Dayo will
build strong support networks and meet regularly to plan their work, or eat and
sew together.
Wadwokotwero will
also provide small-scale farming training to communities. Currently communities
are receiving training in goat rearing, permaculture and container gardening
techniques (to grow herbs and vegetables). This ensures communities have a
sustainable supply of nutritious milk and food, which is particularly important
for OVC and PLHIV. Communities are able to pass on this learning to others,
making it more sustainable.
Our Future Plan for HIV/AIDS/Health:
Lamwo Rock Foundation is planning to
have a hospital for HIV/AIDS patients in Lamwo District in future. We will work
together with our donors and all the well wishers to see that services are
brought near to the people. In most cases our clients run out of drugs and
couldn't get it in time due to the distance from the hospital where they are
suppose to travel up to Kitgum for this services, this affect their progress in
recovery. Through the hospital our clients will have access
to: Counseling and guidance, adherence on drugs, treatment of
opportunistic infection and any other services.
In the
nearest future
Lamwo Rock
Foundation would like to have center for counseling, the room will be connected
to the Lokung Health Center III which exists in the Sub-county with
one mini laboratory and a store. Once the foundation center is constructed at
its head quarter in Parapono parish the center will be transferred to this new
location.
The center will be fairly
equipped with furniture required for HIV/AIDS education, preventive and
supportive counseling both for adults and children. Clients in the center will
be handled with a lot of confidentiality and empathy, all photos and other
publicity from the center will be through clients’ consent. The
center will also handle suicidal tendency and drug addicted cases among others.
The followings are the activities
that will be done at the Center:
1. Voluntary Counseling and Testing
(both static/center and outreaches).
2. Routine HIV Counseling and
Testing.
3. HIV/AIDS
Education/Sensitization through focused group discussion, drama performances,
songs and dance, and with the help of expert clients.
4. Home visits to HIV/AIDS
clients and their affected family members
5. Home Based Care to the
bedridden HIV clients.
6. Ongoing and supportive
counseling/problem solving.
7. Clinical pastoral care to
patients and staff.
8. Support to the Orphans and
Vulnerable Children (OVCs).
9. Referrals in and out of
the Unit.
Community
Health:
Lamwo Rock
Foundation believes that the community can take care of their health,
we believes that community participation is the greatest pillar of
the Primary Health Care. Currently Lamwo Rock Foundation is initiating
it Integrated Community Case Management (ICCM) to treat
Malaria, Pneumonia and diarrhoea to children under five.
Discussion is undergoing with District Health office to see how best the
program will work. This program will run on voluntary basis by
the Community Drugs Distributors (CDDs), they will be trained on how to
assess, classify and Treat or refer the three major cases.
These volunteers will work together with the VHT to form community health
consortium to maximized community health services delivery. This program will
be linked to the health facilities through referral, sharing of report, and
supplies.
