From our follow up surveys, we expect that if more approaches like BUWI are launched nationwide we might see a 25% reduction in the number of women in poverty, and at least a 100,000 UGX increase in monthly household incomes.
Initiatives such as BUWI have also been shown to offer sustainable support to vulnerable populations. Most insightful is assistant professor Leyla Ismayilova work where she studies child maltreatment in one of the world’s poorest nations, Burkina Faso, in western Africa. Her work shows how family counseling can improve the lives of children, who experience emotional and physical violence, and who often work away from home to help support their families. Her work shows that counseling can be combined with an economic project which effectively helps raise incomes for the very poor. (Ismayilova 2017)
Samali Namaganda (Co-Director)
Mentorship Program
What happens to young girls and women that are striving for big dream but they feel defeated and alone in their pursuit because they don’t have anyone close to them to give them support ? The mentorship program is designed pair these young girls and women to people that can act as their mentors or “big sisters”. The mentors are members from similar backgrounds that have been able to achieve different forms of empowerment. They organize meetings where they discuss with the mentees how they overcame adversity and their current life outlook is right. The mentors are free to connect the members to Director-approved resources, organizations and institutions that can further help them reach this goal.
Counseling Program
In BUWI we know that our members have undergone or are going through different kinds of trauma or adverse experiences that might not be known to anyone. We also know that some of these experiences are either stigmatized or part of cultural customs which makes it hard for the victims to get help. As such BUWI creates a safe space where anyone, member or not, can come and either request for the Director, a counselor or a social worker. We also organize week-long counseling events where the members in the community are encouraged to come and talk to counselors and Bukonde’s Probation Officer. Displaced children and women are housed at the Director’s home before discussing referral to the City’s Social Services. Alongside Mbale District’s Social Service Office, we hope to fight against children and women’s abuse and reduce the amount of child marriages, pregnancies and impoverished women.
Visits to Vulnerable People Living Alone
During COVID many people lost those close to them. Some of the elderly people were left alone, with children living is distant districts or dead because of political conflicts. Other elderly women do not have living children of their own or have been shunned from their families. Regardless of their background, The Director, Mrs. Edith Mukera, organizes visits to them and other vulnerable people through BUWI. During the visits, they are given food and counseling to help them combat the loneliness that they might be feeling. We hope that as BUWI expands we will be able to recruit more members to make more frequent visits to vulnerable people living alone.
If you know a vulnerable person living alone in Bukonde or the surrounding region, please contact us or your Probation Officer
Nga wamanyile umukade oba umuntu yesizana ukali numunutu yesi ate nga ali mububanyifu, nu tukubile esimu.
BUWI 