After working closely with families obtaining healthcare from Bishop Asili Hospital, JLMC developed relationships with parents who were deeply committed to their children’s education. Local schools were dilapidated, lacked resources, and in some communities they were non-existent. As a result, Just Like My Child Foundation began a partnership with five local communities and the Ugandan Ministry of Education in 2008 to ensure that children in the Luwero district have full access to primary schooling.

In each school building project, JLMC co-invested alongside communities in all aspects of the process. A covenant was signed and outlined how a community would make investments in their school—like gathering building materials, making bricks, and creating an income-generating activity that would benefit the school, for example. As a result of their co-investment, parents were dedicated to ensuring that their school became a sustainable learning institution where happy and qualified educators would have the training and resources necessary to keep their children engaged, successful, and safe.

A total of five school buildings have been built, including 24 classrooms, one dormitory, 15 teachers houses, five water tanks, 48 toilets, and five lightning rods. The schools have also been equipped with desks, culturally relevant textbooks, and quality classroom learning materials. In addition, teachers and school administrators have sharpened their skills in annual workshops and students participate in extracurricular activities that include music, dance, drama, and debate. In addition, all five schools have participated in JLMC’s Girl Power Project®, equipping hundreds of girls with the assets to stay in school and avoid child marriage, disease, and early pregnancy. (Read the story of Beau’s School!)

While JLMC initially addressed maternal and child health issues by strengthening access to healthcare (including HIV+ treatment enabled by a partnership with Bishop Asili Hospital, the Clinton Foundation, and Mild May), we quickly discovered that poverty was the primary barrier for families to sustain themselves and keep their kids in school. HIV+ patients receiving treatment at Bishop Asili Hospital were in need of better nutrition and a reliable source of income for their families.

At the request of the Bishop Asili Hospital’s HIV+ community, JLMC created a microenterprise program in partnership with Heifer International Uganda, an organization that works with impoverished communities all over the world to strengthen local economies through livestock animal loans. A dairy goat loan provides food with added nutritional value and a reliable source of income, as milk and goat offspring can be traded or sold at market. This loan helps families achieve self-reliance by providing the tools they need to sustain themselves. When many families gain this new sustainable income, it brings economic opportunities for the whole community.

Before accepting the gift of a goat, families are trained in the steps to establish a pasture, farm planning, gardening, energy-saving cookstoves, soil and water conservation, food security, forage management, nutrition and feeding, livestock shed construction, dairy goat management, and veterinary care. Afterward, families must share the training they receive and pass on the first female offspring of their goats to another family in need. Doing so extends the impact of the original gift, allowing a once-impoverished family to become donors who participate in improving their communities.

What’s in It for Girls? Sustainable income generation has been an essential building block for the success of the Girl Power Project® in the communities JLMC serves in Uganda. When families are able to generate income, dignity is restored and families take great pride in being able to send all of their children to school—including girls. A healthy economy provides much greater security for a girl since she is not seen as a form of economic survival for a family.

Many communities in Uganda have limited exposure to their legal system. As a result, individuals are not aware of their human rights, women’s rights, or children’s rights, which are the law of the land in Uganda.

Through Project Justice we teach communities their legal rights and how to defend them. In partnership with the Uganda Federation of Women Attorneys (FIDA), JLMC has trained over 1,000 healthcare providers, police officers, and paralegals to become Community Legal Volunteers (CLVs).

CLVs are equipped with the knowledge to provide basic human rights and legal information, as well as guidance, through community dialogues. This partnership has established an effective referral system for victims of sexual and gender-based violence in central Uganda’s Luwero District.

What’s in it for girls? When girls feel safer and protected by their community, they are able to focus on education, accessing critical services and information, engaging with one another, exchanging information and building social assets, all of which will benefit not only themselves, but the community and their future families.

She is at risk for dropping out of school early, sexual violence, forced child marriage, early pregnancy, complications during childbirth, and contracting HIV/AIDS. If she survives, she will raiser her children in poverty and they, too, will face the same obstacles.

Specifically, in central Uganda, there are an estimated one million adolescent girls, ages 10-19 years, 90% of whom experience vulnerabilities on multiple levels. Nationally, the mean number of years girls attend school is 4.5 (the mean for boys is only two years higher at 6.8), and nearly 50% of girls will drop or be pulled out of school by parents/guardians by age 15. An estimated 40%-50% of all Ugandan women marry before age 18, and an estimated 15% marry by age 15. In rural areas, such as the communities found in central Uganda, girls are married earlier and, on average, have three more children than their urban counterparts.

And yet, girls have the potential to move themselves and their families into a healthier, more secure life. When a girl has seven or more years of education, she marries four years later and has 2.2 fewer children. (Center for Global Development 2009)

A girl who completes basic education is 3x less likely to contract HIV/AIDS (The Global Campaign for Education 2011). Girls who stay in school during adolescence have a later sexual debut, are less likely to be subjected to forced sex and, if sexually active, are more likely to use contraception than their peers who are out of school (girleffect.org).

Increasing the secondary education of all girls could result in an annual income increase of 30% per capita (Chabaan 2011).

Educated women reinvest 90% of their income in their family, while men reinvest 30%-40% (USAID).

Giving women the same access to resources and services as men could reduce the number of hungry people in the world by 100-150 million (girleffect.org).

What’s in it for girls? JLMC firmly believes that reinvesting in the empowerment of adolescent girls means supporting the most powerful force for change on the planet. That’s why JLMC developed the Girl Power Project® curriculum to empower vulnerable adolescent girls with the tools, skills, and attitudes to stay in school and protect themselves from forced child marriage, early pregnancy, and disease.