Seeds and other gardening equipment are to be supplied to households in Kabarole district to help families looking after orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) under a new Ush 625 million scheme.
Seeds and other gardening equipment are to be supplied to households in Kabarole district to help families looking after orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) under a new Ush 625 million scheme.
The scheme, which is being run by German NGO Welt Hunger Hilfer (WHH) in partnership with Young Encouragement Services (YES), aims to provide OVC with enough food and improve the income of the households in which they live.
The project named Hope in Agriculture and Life skill Development for Kabarole (HALSIK) will run for three years in the district. The assistant regional director of WHH, Mr Moses Obenen, said the will focus on supporting OVCs who have dropped out of school and have limited land to cultivate.
Obenen said: “YES has been supporting the OVCs with school, but some have dropped out of school and others not receiving any support. We saw them suffering with so many problems and decided to help them on food, with food we know they have life.
“We are looking at food security and we want to address it at household level by providing these people with seeds and other inputs. We want them to have enough food, and we want the direct beneficiary to be the children.
“Majority of our people have limited land and so we have given them high yielding seeds which will enable them produce highly on these small pieces of land.”
Carol Adams, the executive director of YES, said it aims at help strength the families of OVCs in order to improve household income and provide enough food.
She said: “We are working to strengthen families agriculturally to help them feed themselves and improve on their house. We believe this will help to fight food insecurity”
The project will be implemented in 120 household of OVCs in 12 sub counties of Kabarole district.
The seeds, which will be supplied to farmers among others, include ground nuts, beans, maize, soya beans and Irish potatoes. The households were also supplied with gardening equipment such as hoes, wheel barrows and pruning knives.
Florence Kadoma the Secretary for Production in Kabarole district, said: “We know the situation of OVCs and the overwhelming poverty levels in the district. With this support I think we shall reduce on the overwhelming poverty problem and improve on the household income.”
Ms Kadoma argued that as 85% of the Ugandan population depends on agriculture it is prudent for one to support the community in agriculture.
Olive Agaba, one of the beneficiaries who has rented a piece of land to carry her farming, said she has received training on how to improve her farming and is ready to benefit from the program.
Agaba said: “I rented the land at Ush 60,000 and I hope with the training I received I will be able to do the right thing. With the high yielding seeds, plus these tools I will be able to get something from this. As people who depend on farming this is giving us more courage to continue with the faming.”
The first consignment of seeds and agricultural equipment has cost Ush 50 million.
The HALISK project is helping OVC families find family-based solutions for children, thereby developing an alternative framework to institutional care. The project also looks at economic strengthening, food and nutrition security, and provides health, education, psychosocial support and basic care support.
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