Youth Action International is a non-governmental organization that uses grassroots techniques to develop and implement programs that help alleviate the suffering of children affected by war or living in difficult circumstances, empower them to reach their full potential, and break cycles of violence and poverty.
Read the YAI 2008 Annual Report: Empowering Africa (pdf)
Youth Action International Uganda
PO Box 21011
Kampala, Uganda
Email: memory@peaceforkids.org
Telephone: 011-256774613669
Youth Action International’s mission to Uganda is implementing programs in five districts. Our work is benefiting people in Kampala, Jinja, Gulu, Karamoja and Rakai. Uganda also serves as our Regional Sacratariat for East Africa.
YAI will focus its work in six districts in Uganda: Rakai, Kampala, Jinja, Karamoja, Gulu and Amuru. The empowerment of local community is the cornerstone of all our projects. Family empowerment is established to serve two principle functions: provide continuing education and skills training for adolescents who were unable to continue their studies because demand for formal education far exceeded supply; and stimulate local development and economic growth in much needed industries and trades. These programs will provide locally produced goods and services that can be purchased at a much lower cost than if they are obtained from outside the community. Each project will be run by experts in the industry or trade it provides skills training for. Once young people have the necessary skills, YAI provides start up grants and/or micro-credit loans.
Youth Action International tackles the problems facing youth in the slum areas in Kampala by using a holistic approach through the vocational training center. The goal of this project is to create and sustain healthy, skilled, stable and independent youths through ensuring sustainable livelihoods. The center’s primary purpose is to provide training to the marginalized youth in slum areas in Kampala. Other than the skills they acquire in tailoring, wood curving, beads making and tie and dye, we also plan to provide internet and secretarial services to the public as well as rent out equipment for various functions. This will be a great opportunity to gain hands on experience for the trainees and at the same time bringing in income for the center. The center promotes the vital role young people can play in sustainable development. It is an integral part of a long-term local capacity-building program for youth.
YAI is implementing the ‘Family Empowerment program’ to support children made vulnerable by AIDS, poverty and conflict in Rakai. In the 1 st phase of this program, YAI is providing 150 families (800+ people) with seeds so they can do subsistence farming. This will help with food security for the families as well as enable them to provide the basic needs for the children. The 2 nd phase will be to support the community in groups to develop community grain stores. YAI will provide the communities with necessary training to start the grain stores. This will help the entire community at such times when availability of grains deteriorates, when terms of trade shift in favor of grain traders and when purchasing power declines. The 3 rd phase will be supplementing the agriculture initiative with animal farming to make sure the families will have constant income in the long run. The final phase will be providing training in Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs) to families in Rakai. VSLAs will reach the most marginalized people in Rakai that have low or no income and it operates on a large scale that it will eventually provide sustainable profitable savings, insurance and credit services.
Youth Action International will spearhead the establishment of income-generating project for 2,500 people in Jinja District. This project is aimed at economically empowering communities especially youth with income generating projects to make them self-sustainable. The two proposed projects are fishing and pig rearing. These projects will be implemented in Loco community which is one of the poorest communities in Jinja district. YAI will integrate the Village Savings and Loans Association (VSLA) program. VLSAs facilitate the development of unregulated and usually informal groups that exclusively depend on member savings for their loan fund capital with no external liabilities to a lending institution to increase the total amount. VLSAs have proven to be very effective in various parts of Uganda. YAI will provide training on how to start and run VLSAs as well as monitor their progress.
YAI will support 50 formerly abducted child mothers with seed money for starting businesses to improve on their lives. This project aims at empowering the child mothers by engaging them in small businesses to make them earn incomes to meet their basic needs and those of their children. The project targets both child mothers who were child soldiers and those in the IDP camps. This will contribute to the process of reintegration and reconciliation in the community. The child mothers will be organized into groups but will do business individually to ensure easy management and monitoring.
Forty-five youth will be supported in commercial apiary farming to generate incomes. This project aims at engaging the youth in commercial honey production (apiary). There is large market for honey in both Uganda and Southern Sudan but the production of honey for long has been largely on small scale for domestic consumption. This project is expected to generate income that will make the youth self-reliant. The wax from honey will be used to make candles that will also be sold locally.
Youth Action International also employes consultants and works with a number of partner organizations in Uganda.
On June 15th, the Chase Community Giving will begin. Voters will be able to use their facebook accounts to determine which organizations will win one of the many cash prizes.
Our ability to win this money to help us continue our work in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Uganda depends on your vote. So please take a moment to click the VOTE NOW link, login to your facebook account and vote for us.
I’ve been thinking about what to write since I came back from Liberia. I am from Spain and English is my fourth language – I also speak Spanish, Italian, and Catalan. So as you can imagine, it took me forever to put all my thoughts in order in English.
My name is Esther Rodriguez-Brown. My husband, Michael, and I are the founders of The Embracing Project, a non profit organization we created to educate inner city youth about the similarities between genocide and gang activity. One purpose of this journey is to expose inner city youth to the experiences of children soldiers in different parts of the world and then to create a pen-pal relationship between both groups.
Every year, Kimmie Weeks embarks on a nationwide speaking tour to motivate young people to become pioneers of change. To date, thousands of students have heard his message and many of them have gone on to start their own humanitarian organizations or have joined other change-making programs.
Contact Natsumi Ajiki: natsumi @ peaceforkids.org
“What have I gotten myself into?”
This is a question that has come up many times on my journey to Africa.
I suppose to clarify, and so as not to sound like a cynic, I should explain a little bit about myself. I’ve been a photographer for two and a half years now. When I first picked up a camera the only thought that went through my head was “Awesome, now I have a big chunk of metal, plastic and glass that will allow me to take clearer photos and I’ll soon be rich and famous as a result of having this camera!”
This was not the case as I am neither rich, nor famous (side from my own delusions of grandeur.) Anyways all of that is beside the point. If someone had told me the day that I picked up that camera that it would eventually lead me to post war West Africa, I would have laughed in their faces. Not because traveling to West Africa is a crazy idea, but simply because I did not see myself ever getting past the stage of “hobbyist” photography.
And yet, here I sit, in Sierra Leone, thousands of miles from home (6168 miles approximately) volunteering as the photographer for Youth Action International.
Now in regards to Africa, particularly Sierra Leone and Liberia, I don’t think that anything could have really prepared me for what I would experience here. This is including Kimmie’s ‘worst case scenario’ description of Liberia.
I wish I had been more diligent about documenting my experiences and reactions in Liberia, but I seemed to always put off the act of writing. I always told myself I was too tired or busy, but the truth is that I had a very difficult time reflecting on the barrage of experiences at the time. Throughout my time in Africa, I realized that I did not once shed a tear. It was only once I was on the plane from Accra to New York, on my way back to my privileged and comfortable life, that I was able to absorb the memories and the pictures that I was taking with me. As I looked through the pictures I had taken on my camera, I cried for a half an hour straight. I cried thinking about the hopeful faces on the small children at Temas Orphanage that I was leaving. I cried for young people of Grand Bassa County who do not have the opportunity to go to school. I cried because I realized that my life would be changed forever and I cried because I felt an overwhelming sense of helplessness.
A cross-section of observers, traditional and religious leaders, local and international media stormed Ri-Kwangba last week to witness the historical moment were Joseph Kony, the Lord Resistance Army (LRA) leader was supposed to sign the final peace agreement. The rest of the world held its breath to witness the day that northern Uganda would finally get to normalcy after 20 years of conflict between the Government of Uganda and the LRA rebels.
“Aren’t you nervous?” my dear friend carefully asked me when I told her that I’d be visiting Uganda. That’s how my parents reacted at first. I told myself it is not because Uganda is part of Africa that they are worried for my travel. Traveling to new places is always uncertain to some extent. However, I couldn’t deny that part of me was more worried than usual. What would I see? How would I feel? What should I expect? Am I mature enough? Above all, the question was ‘why would I want to go visit Africa’? I cannot tell Uganda story leaving out the influence of Kimmie and Youth Action International. I actually met Kimmie at Northfield Mount Hermon High School where Kimmie graduated from.
The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), an Acholi-based opposition group led by Joseph Kony has been fighting first against president Museveni’s government, and currently against other Acholi peoples. The Acholi are an ethnic group who live in Northern Uganda. Though Kony, leader of the LRA reportedly believes he has been chosen by God to overthrow president Museveni and establish a government based on the Ten Commandments, and a purified Acholi race, the LRA has yet to explain its goals or put forth any sort of political agenda.
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I wasn’t promised an African sunset. When Kimmie Weeks invited me on a humanitarian mission through post-conflict countries, what came to mind were the stunning landscape pictures my friends had brought back from the ranch in Kenya. It was how I had envisioned this beautiful continent. Streaks of red and orange, firing up the night sky of deep blue and purple: a kaleidoscope of color. Instead, I found another kind of sunset. I found the African people wasting away, dying brutal, horrific deaths at the hands of war, disease, and poverty. I found the sun setting on their lives. Not fading into the night with brilliant lights, but being shredded into a nonexistence wracked with pain and suffering. Continue reading
I traveled to Liberia and Sierra Leone with Kimmie Weeks during the summer of 2006 to assist him and carry out research for YAI. I am originally from Tanzania and was excited to visit west Africa. I was confident I would adjust to Sierra Leone pretty quickly, because hey, it was still Africa wasn’t it? And I’m half African. Continue reading
