Everyday, we reach out to the villages to assess and register ovcs, we follow the sponsorship selection criteria/check list and work with local leaders to identify who needs help in a particular. We also work with education centres or schools to also find who is badly in need of sponsorship. This is coupled with a number of villages or household visits to understand more about the child’s living conditions in regards to shelter, food security, income generating activity, access to safe and clean water and the ability to meet school requirements and fees. We have progressed well in the recent months after registration in July 2020. We started with 15 children last year in July but now we have reached more than 30 children on sponsorship. However, there is still great need in the rural areas of sponsorship after slowly grasping the value of education.

The provision of care and support to OVCs is yet another neglected area due to limited resources; government has relegated the provision of emergency support services to a few civil society organizations. The high fertility rate of 6.9 percent has resulted into a high population growth rate of 3.2 percent, an aspect which constrains available resources for families to provide minimal basic care and support to their children. Coupled with the fact that the poor are much more inclined to produce many children, child vulnerability in Uganda is likely to continue unabated unless effective family planning interventions are adopted. Child Support Uganda shall take support and care for OVCs as a focal point because we are working towards becoming parents and caretakers for those whose parents died and those who’re unable to look after themselves because of circumstances beyond their control like the current harsh climatic conditions that has resulted into strong famine in the area, such families are in urgent need for food and other household supplies.

HIV and AIDS prevalence in Uganda has continued to pose a major challenge for children. The OVC Situational Analysis 2010 attributes high adult mortality and increasing orphan-hood in Uganda to HIV and AIDS and malaria. As extended family ties continue to weaken, most of the orphans have no fall-back positions. Many end up living on their own in child headed households, or live with very old impoverished grandparents who are themselves in need of external assistance. This leaves them in a state of dilemma with limited access to food and sometimes they go without eating and or if they access food, they only eat one meal per day. This worsens their growth and development, therefore Child Support Uganda comes in to provide food as a first step for them to live and later provide permanent solution to food related challenges by looking at land access and planting materials such that for the next seasons and years such families will be food secure.

Although Uganda enacted the Children Statute (1996), now the Children Act Chapter 59, and put in place institutional mechanisms to protect children rights, violation of the rights of children remain rampant. Several cases have been reported to police indicating severe violation of children’s rights. The report indicates defilement constituting the highest form of abuse with 2,594 (32%), child disappearance, 1, 259 cases (15.6%), child stealing 1,089 cases (13.1%). Other cases reported are torture, 773 cases (9.3%), neglect, 680 cases (8.2%), assault, 326 cases (3.9 %), infanticide 317 cases (3.8%) and child trafficking, 100 cases (1.2%).

Community practices/cultures that promote early marriages perpetrate the problem of Child-mothers, who apart from being vulnerable, give birth to children who become vulnerable to various threats, sustaining a vulnerability cycle through generations. Similarly, community perception of child labour as a normal part of child development compounds the situation of children involved. Currently, almost one third of all children in Uganda aged 7-14 years combine economic activity with household chores and attending school, with obvious consequences on time for attending school (UBOS 2008). An additional 2.4 percent of children perform double work duty in economic and household chores without attending school. Engagement of children in exploitative labour, even though not currently reported to police constitutes one of the serious violations of the rights of children. We therefore intend to carryout community training and awareness campaign on the rights of children to reduce their vulnerability to torture, exploitation and abuse.