PROJECT Activities
MENTAL HEALTH PROGRAM "WORP"
Children’s mental health and well-being can have substantial effects on their physical development, school performance, relationships with family and friends, and engagement in
their community. This is why we are taking a three-pronged approach to addressing mental health concerns: direct service delivery, capacity building, and research with specific focus
on children and youth in the region. CCU is a collaborator on the Project 'Wang Oo Relit' (WORP) supported by funding from Grand Challenges Canada to Kwantlen Polytechnic University. We are working as a team of youth leaders, counselors, researchers and
community elders to find and implement the evidence-based, culturally appropriate best practices in improving youths’ psychological well-being. Specifically, WORP’s aim is to
strengthen youths’ mental well-being and resilience by reducing stigma around mental health, sharing knowledge about mental sicknesses and health, and developing skills, such as coping with stress, mindfulness activities and building peer-support strategies.
Would you like to get to know the amazing team working on this project?
SOCCER PROJECT
Our soccer activities take place 3x/week and offer so much more than just a chance to relax and have fun. As part of the training, the youth are also taught different social values like teamwork and forming their social character. The soccer project is an awesome opportunity to talk to youth, who would not come for counseling by themselves and to get to know them better. Training and matches provide an informal way for us to understand and chat with the children about their situations. Through this, we are able to intervene and bring children with diseases or injuries to a doctor.We organize friendly matches and participate in tournaments to motivate the team to work together. You can support our soccer project through a monthly donation or by being a sponsor for a child to play soccer for one year. Interested?
MEDICAL CARE
At CCU, we refuse to allow children to suffer or lose their lives because of being unable to afford a simple malaria test, at 1,50 Euros or the treatment for an easily managed infection. The children know they can come to us at any time and find support, so we try to take care of their health as best as we can by performing first aid, taking them to clinics and regularly monitoring their health. We help children affected by HIV to get their daily treatment by providing transport and accompanying them to their monthly check ups.
The small health center in our village is not well equipped and many people cannot afford the transport to town which has created a high need for better medical care in our community. Therefore, we would like to build a small clinic on the premises of our rehabilitation center in future. If you are interested in sponsoring this amazing opportunity, send us a message and we will get back to you shortly!
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COOPERATION WITH
GOVERNMENT & PARNTERS
It often happens that homeless children get falsely beaten, tortured, imprisoned or sometimes killed. Together with the police, community leaders and the heads of the government, we try to intervene for their release and protect them.
We speak with community leaders and the police about the situation the children are in to raise awareness and to improve their status in the community. As part of the GBV Child Protection Group in Gulu, we coordinate activities with the probation office and other organizations through our monthly meetings. It is important to convey the views and perspectives of the children in order to open the eyes of those responsible for the situations in which the children find themselves.
Through the cooperation with local and international partners, we are able to achieve more than alone. We love learning from each other and working hand in hand with organizations whose goals are aligned with ours.
Click here to find out more about our current partners.
COUNSELING & HEALING
Through talks, prayers, spiritual guidance and counseling, we are able to gain deeper insights into the situations of the children and can encourage them to have faith and hope in their situation changing. Many of the children would love to have a supportive figure in their lives, but for most this is not a reality, so we try to find solutions together and join them on their journey.
Prayers are an integral part of our daily work, as much internally among our team as during the activities we carry out. Having a relationship with God restores hope and opens doors in a miraculous way.
Family and couples counseling rebuilds and strengthens relationships. In the individual counseling sessions, the beneficiaries can open up in a confidential set up, talk about their feelings and receive encouragement for their individual situations.
HOME VISITS & RESETTLEMENT
The children we work with are registered with our organization in order to allow for better monitoring and follow-ups of individual situations. At CCU, we reach out to the childrens’ families to understand more about why they are in the situations they are. We involve community leaders to see if and how a child could be resettled back home, and how best to support the child from there. At CCU we understand that if possible, the most important place for a child is at home with their birth families. That’s why children who live in our Rehabilitation Center go through a program with the goal to be resettled after. Therefore, family counseling and guidance plays a big role when visiting their homes.
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Home Assessments are done for anyone benefiting from our organization. Our tailoring beneficiaries, the children under the sponsorship program and the youth who attend skill trainings are visited at their homes with their families so that we can gain a better understanding about their lives and find ways to involve the family and community to support them.
COMMUNITY SENSITIZATION
To address problems at the root, we need to positively influence the families and communities in which the children live. To prevent them from dropping out of school, from ending up being homeless or being exposed to violence, we conduct sensitization events in the community.
We hold meetings with parents, leaders and other parties to address questions and educate them about children's & women's rights as well as mental health. Understanding the struggles the parents are in, and where their hearts are, makes it easier for us to help them in their individual situations and prevent escalations.
We feel blessed having the opportunity to raise awareness about the rights of children living with disabilities, educate about GBV and domestic violence and to teach about mental health and positive parenthood.
We would like to start a Radio Talks Show to be able to reach more people in Northern Uganda, than we can through a dialogue. If you are interested in sponsoring one of our sensitization events, you can find more information on how to support here.
EDUCATION & SKILL TRAINING
Many children do not have the chance to go to school due to different reasons.
CCU also helps young women who dropped out of school through our skills training projects. Within 6 months they learn the practical and theoretical skills needed to open up their own business. We offer a tailoring course for each 13 participants, a hair dressing course for each 15 participants and a carpentry course for each 10 beneficiaries.
Through smaller workshops like liquid soap making and business skills training, youth in the communities gain skills and business opportunities.
There are still many children registered with us who have not been able to return to school. By sponsoring a child, you can give someone the opportunity to go to school in order to change their life and secure their future. You can also support a young woman or man in doing their skills training with us. More info about the sponsorship program here.
LIFE AT THE REHABILITATION CENTER
In our rehabilitation center we have space for 10 boys. The children living with us are identified by our social worker and the probation office. All of them come from very vulnerable backgrounds. Some were homeless, some are orphans and some experienced violence at home.
Living together in a family does not only involve the basic needs of hygiene, nutrition, medical care and a bed to sleep in. By showing them love, guiding them in their daily lives, advising and counseling them and finding strategies to build resilience, stress copying strategies and practicing self-care, we are able to be light in their lives. Our children are going to local schools so that the reintegration process can start even while they still stay with us.
We celebrate successes together, comfort each other in need and help the beneficiaries develop a new mindset of hope. Hope that they can make it, hope that someone is believing in them, hope that they are valued and that better things lie ahead.
We are only able to support the children in their daily lives through your kind support. If you would like to get to know the ways in which you can donate to our cause, you can click here.
WOMEN AND YOUTH EMPOWERMENT
We love investing in our next generation by planting hope in the lives of youth and young women. In our community many young people are jobless, have dropped out of school or have become teenage parents, often all three. We want to prevent young people from ending up on the street just because they are looking for a "better life" in the city.
Through business skills trainings, counseling, sports activities and handcraft workshops we plant perspective into their lives.
We carefully assess the situations the young people are in to be able to provide programs according to their unique needs.
Each week, about 60-100 youth from the community participate in our activities. We also support young single mothers and teenage mothers in their journey through parenthood by trying to activate their family system and provide support in emergency care.
We are only able to support the children in their daily lives through your kind support. If you would like to get to know the ways in which you can donate to our cause, you can click here.
