Happy International Women’s Day!

We want to celebrate this day and thank our staff & volunteers in Uganda for the work they do to educate, empower and enable women to improve their lives and increase their prospects in life. There is still a great need in Northern Uganda, and specifically in Gulu, where we work to help women break out of poverty. The choices the young women face there are complex, and sometimes they choose to cut their education short in favour of getting married or moving in with a partner. Below are some of the ways TEAMS is doing its bit to improve education & employment opportunities for women (although these programmes are not exclusively for women).

Stitches: Christine teaching our students at our sewing school (STITCHES). Once they complete the two year course, the students get a government accredited certificate in tailoring, which increases their opportunities for employment.

SEAMS: Christine also leads our sewing enterprise (SEAMS), where the women who work their share the profits of their produce.

Micro Finance Club: Our micro finance club enables locals to get a loan at accessible interest rates (1/5th of the local banks’ rates). This means that ladies, like this one above, can borrow money to increase her stock at her market stall, which in turn increases her profits – which she is happy about!

Agape Programme: Thanks to our generous sponsors, we are also able to support four girls, who are orphans, through their education. Our aim is to support them all the way through to the end of university.

Prison Outreach (Photos cannot be taken in prison) TEAMS also runs a prison outreach and have had a request from the women in three prisons to run a bakery programme, so that when they leave prison they would be able to make some money from baking. It would cost £550 to run the course in the three prisons, to facilitate the teachers and provide all the materials, but we currently do not have the funds for this.

If you would like to help us play our part in educating & empowering women in Northern Uganda, please contact us via the contact tab at the bottom of the page.

Thanks for reading and Happy International Women’s Day!