Village Based WOMEN'S CIRCLES HAPPENING NOW!
Donation protected
The Women's Circles Team of Facilitators has been very busy since you last heard from us.
As we explained before, our village based Women's Circles in the Nakivale Refugee Settlement in Uganda will improve women's health and well-being through empowerment, knowledge, friendship, resource mobilization, and community building.
The Women's Circles will empower the women to solve their own (and therefore their community's) problems creatively and collectively.
Our team have returned to the four villages where we will start our Pilot Project of Women's Circles and surveyed 504 more women to better understand their needs.
Our Facilitators have been hard at work studying how to use facilitative leadership to create groups that empower the participants to fully contribute from their rich wisdom and to learn and support each other, not just to attend "classes" by supposed experts.
To prepare for our first topic -- Menstrual Health -- they have completed a training by Afripads, a Ugandan social enterprise, and we have purchased ecologically sound Reusable Menstrual Pads from them to provide to our first 4 groups of women. We are also in the process of negotiating to receive Menstrual cups as well. We are responding to the needs of the 97% of the women we initially surveyed who have no access to menstrual supplies.
We have plans to include the whole family in later meetings, as we dispel the myths and stigmas about menstruation, freeing women to realize their full potential in their communities.
See our latest update for a detailed timeline on the Pilot Project and the photos and biographies of our Team.
We are also in the process of contracting with an NGO to bring new clean water supplies to our people which will serve 5000 families, providing five 20 liter jerry cans of water a day to each family. This is a giant improvement from having to spend 6 hours and travel several kilometers to fetch four 20 liter cans each day currently.
PLEASE SUPPORT us if you can and pass this appeal on to a few of your friends. In this world full of seemingly endless pain and suffering it is hard to effect,
WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE in projects like this. It's good for our mental health to have something positive to do while genocide and wars continue funded by our tax dollars against our will.
UNIDOS IS BORN
Unidos Social Innovation Centre, popularly known as Unidos for short was established in 2018 by a group of refugees living in the Nakivale Refugee Settlement to address food insecurity and create livelihood opportunities in our community after food rations were drastically reduced for refugees in Uganda.
Over 5,300 positively impacted lives
Through our various activities in regenerative agriculture, soap making, and business training, Unidos has been able to touch the lives of over 5300 community members including1900 people who have been trained in permaculture.
OUR REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE
For decades people have been using chemical fertilizers, harming the soil and the health of the people. We use permaculture, ecological thinking, vermiculture (worm composting), education of farmers, water preservation, and vertical farming. We regenerate soils - conserving water, remineralizing, improving soil structure, and vastly increasing microbial life- we also inspire optimism, and hope in this otherwise challenging environment.
In addition to taking care of the soil, we are planting trees to mitigate climate change while creating a more ideal environment to cultivate crops, allowing us to shift away from dependency on organizations like the World Food Program.
Water is Life
A key resource for all our work is water, and this year has been particularly difficult due to inadequate supplies of water at our demonstration farms. Climate change has extended Nakivale's dry season from five to seven months, affecting agriculture and water sources greatly. Our soil regeneration and use of permaculture techniques such as swales has greatly increased water retention in our soil , with drainage rates decreasing from 10 cm/hour to 8 cm/hour. But we must increase our access to water to increase our yields. We have access to a lake next to one of our farms, and with the purchase of a solar powered water pump and a back-up generator, we will have access to a much more adequate and reliable water supply. A more reliable water supply means more food production and a healthier community.
Unidos is not just for agriculture!
EMPOWERMENT
As refugees, we are greatly affected by poverty, climate change, war, and political suppression from our home countries.
Unidos centers personal empowerment and community building in its work. Recognizing the unemployment crisis and language barrier, Unidos has a variety of programing.in addition to Permaculture practices. We provide English lessons, leadership, and business training to equip ourselves with skills needed for economic participation. We break down barriers using Cultural Exchange programs, and foster resilience through empowerment workshops.
WOMEN
Women and children make up 75% of the people of Nakivale. Gender discrimination limits opportunities and reduces wages for women. The struggle faced by women, particularly single mothers, prompted Unidos to launch a women’s empowerment program focused on them. Through skills training and environmental initiatives like tree planting, women are generating income and improving their livelihoods. We have trained over 1000 women who have planted 5000 trees. Moringa trees (the world’s best source of plant protein) are also used to produce organic and liquid soaps-700 liters of soap are produced monthly with 500 liters sold in local markets.
Please give what you can and share this campaign with at least two friends. It is so easy to make a really big difference in a world where it so often seems like we are powerless.
Organizer
Nora Roman
Organizer
San Francisco, CA