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Programs

Programs

Promoting Health

Challenge

  • Uganda has the second youngest population in the world, with 53% below 18 years. One in four adolescent girls aged 15-19 years in Uganda have begun childbearing.
  • HIV epidemic remains a serious public health problem in Uganda especially among youths.
  • HIV prevalence for female youth aged 15–24 is consistently higher than their male counterparts.
  • 74% of new infections are girls and women in sub Saharan Africa.
  • The highest case identification gap is in men of the age group 15-24 with only 47.3% diagnosed, 47.3% of those are on ART, and 37.6% are virally suppressed.
  • Fishing communities have a significantly higher HIV prevalence than the general population. Source https://www.unaids.org/

Interventions

  • Football is used as platform for education and information about HIV and AIDS
  • Football matches are a point of access to voluntary and confidential HIV counselling and testing and other health services
  • Coaches as role models are trained on a customized curriculum that focuses on interpersonal communication, mentorship, establishing and maintaining trust, building coping skills, and supporting problem-solving
  • Harnessing media coverage of football activities to communicate and promote AIDS messages to a wider audience
  • Partnering with private sector in the use of sport for social corporate responsibility projects

Generally football is used to increase awareness and prevention knowledge related to HIV, malaria and tuberculosis; improve the health of people living with HIV and AIDS; reduce stigma associated with HIV and AIDS; reduce health risk behaviors; and increase measles and polio vaccination rates.

Promoting Education

Challenge

  • Uganda as many other African countries is facing a learning crisis. Learning poverty, the share of children not able to read and understand an age-appropriate text by age 10, is estimated by the World Bank and UNESCO at 83 percent. This is in part because out-of-school children are unlikely to achieve reading proficiency. But it mostly results from the fact that 81 percent of children enrolled in primary school could be learning poor. It is imperative to improve the quality of the education provided in schools.
  • Schooling does not imply learning, but lack of learning increases the likelihood of dropping out of school. According to the World Bank and UNESCO Institute of Statistics, the primary school completion rate was at 52 percent in 2017 for boys and 54 percent for girls. In the same year, lower secondary completion was at 28% for men and 25% for women. Gross enrollment in tertiary education was at 6 percent for men in 2016 versus 4 percent for women – Source ; https://www.iicba.unesco.org/en/node/112
  • There is a declining trend of sporting and play activities in schools due to academic pressures by school to perform well in national examinations.
  • The declining trend in sports is due to lack / inadequate sports facilities and infrastructure especially in urban school where there is hardly space for children to play.

Interventions

  • Boys and girls who participate in Kids Sports League (KSL) football seasons , acquire the following skills ; cooperation , team work, fair play, sharing, self-esteem, value of effort, respect for rules, leadership, respect for others, how to win, how to lose, confidence, tolerance, resilience, discipline, connection with others, trust and honesty. These values acquired through sport build responsible citizens interested in education.
  • Schools are equipped with sporting and play materials and this makes school environment interesting and attractive to children.
  • Parents, Guardians and Teachers support children during play as coaches and role model to children.

Sporting events are used as a platform to create community awareness on issues of community participation in education of their children.

Safeguarding children and adolescents

Challenge

  • In Uganda, most children have experienced some form of violence and abuse. More than 8 million children are considered to be vulnerable to harm. Sexual abuse is the most common form of violence, with gender as a major risk factor. Every day, around 26 girls are defiled.
  • Violence and abuse follow children to schools and homes – places where they are supposed to be safe and protected.
  • Children with disabilities are even more at risk of mental, physical and sexual abuse because of discrimination, isolation and lack of access to services. Other groups of acutely vulnerable children include children living on the street, orphans and refugee children. 
  • Uganda is now host to 1.3m refugees, including survivors of sexual violence and separated or unaccompanied children who urgently need protection. 
  • Child labor is a common feature of life for extremely vulnerable children. Millions of children are working in exploitative conditions in Uganda, with 93 per cent of rural children believed to be engaged in commercial or subsistence agriculture. 
  • But there are still gaps in service delivery to both prevent and respond to violence and abuse. Around 30 per cent of children are still not registered at birth, leaving them excluded from support and protection services, and unaccounted for in policy decisions. In addition, entrenched cultural and patriarchal beliefs, attitudes and norms towards children and women perpetuate child- and gender-based violence.

Source ; https://www.unicef.org/uganda

Interventions

  • Families and communities are central to the care and protection that children need. Through football as a platform that attracts children massively awareness is created to address social norms that perpetuate violence against children.
  • Coaches and Teachers are oriented on child protection policy and child safeguarding.
  • Coaches and teachers as well train children about their rights and responsibilities and how to report abuse
  • Schools are encouraged to establish Child-friendly and confidential complaints mechanisms

Children at risk are identified and  promptly referred to relevant stakeholders

Promoting Gender Equity and Empowering Girls and Women

Challenge

  • In Uganda , whereas enrolment at primary school level has reached an impressive 96%, completion at primary seven is only 54% majority of the drop outs are girls due to early marriages – Uganda Poverty Status Report 2012
  • The girl child population in Uganda faces difficult challenges due to harmful attitudes and practices such as female genital mutilation, early marriages, teenage pregnancy and generally tendencies that favor boys at the expense of girls. Communities still believe that education for the girl child benefits her husband’s family. Stereotypes don’t value girl child education and only look at girls as marriage assets for their homes.
  • Girls are married off at the time they are supposed to be in school. There is relatively higher prevalence rate of new HIV infections than boys of the same age due to social and cultural norms
  • Violence against teenagers aged 15-19 years; Physical (23.5%), sexual (16.8%), and physical and sexual violence at 9.4% respectively.
  • Ankole registered the highest percent in emotional violence at 48.6%
  • 56% of women in Uganda aged 15-49 reported having experienced physical violence while 22% had experienced sexual violence at least once since Source – https://uganda.unfpa.org

Interventions

  • Kids Sports League uses sporting events to empower women and girls through sport. Soccer events promote and protect the rights of the girl child and increase awareness of her needs and potential.
  • Soccer clubs for girls are avenues to break stereotypes on abilities of girls. Girls equipped with leadership and coaching training to become peer educators and role models for others.
  • Soccer clubs are avenues for girls to report on abuses their friends experience and such cases are referred to points with services for example police, local authorities or medical institutions
  • Sporting clubs for are Peer education for on children rights and discussions on issues affecting children especially the girl child during the coaching and training sessions.
  • Soccer clubs are avenues for girls to freely express themselves as they have fun.
  • Girls have been trained to be coaches, referees and managers of sporting clubs; this has made them leaders of their clubs.
  • Soccer clubs in schools make school attractive, this encourages children to enroll and stay.

After games discussions on health have created awareness among adolescent girls on HIV/AIDS prevention and personal hygiene.

Enhancing the Inclusion and Well-being of Persons with Disabilities

Challenge

  • Disabled people in Uganda, as in most developing countries in the world, face extreme conditions of poverty, have limited opportunities for accessing education, health, suitable housing and employment opportunities – Source https://www.ilo.org
  • In Uganda, whereas about 94.06% of all the children aged between 6 to 12 years are enrolled in primary school at the correct age and grade (Net enrollment rate), it should be noted that only 2.5% of the children with disabilities are in primary schools. (Uganda, Education Sector Strategic Plan 2017 – 2020   pages 78)
  • In terms of school enrolment for children with disabilities, Uganda still lags behind Source ; UNDP, http://hdr.undp.org
  • There is limited participation of children with disability and other vulnerable children in education.
  • According to the report “The African Child Policy Forum ACPF (2011), Children with disabilities in Uganda: The hidden reality”, the following were discovered about children with disabilities in Uganda;
    • Negative attitudes are the biggest barrier to social integration. The study revealed that disabled children still face non-supportive attitudes and practices at both family and wider community levels. Within the family, 32% of child respondents were excluded from gatherings and social events; 35% were verbally or physically abused; and about 21% were excluded from family time because of their disabilities
  • The Ugandan Ministry of Education and Sports has no clear budget to promote sports for persons with disabilities in the country.

Interventions

  • Soccer events have been used as platforms to improve the inclusion and well-being of persons with disabilities by changing what communities think and feel about persons with disabilities and by changing what persons with disabilities think and feel about themselves.
  • Soccer events create awareness among persons with disabilities because it allows for large groups to come together in a fun way
  • Weekly soccer leagues for refugee boys and girls with disabilities among schools in
  • Indoor games and equipment for refugee boys and girls with disabilities
  • Outdoor play areas / play spaces for refugee boys and girls with disabilities

Provide assistive devices to boys and girls with disabilities

Enhancing Social Inclusion, Preventing Conflict and Building Peace

  • Uganda is one of the largest refugee-hosting nations in the world, with 1,529,904 refugees, the second biggest refugee settlement in Uganda is called Nakivale refugee settlement in Isingiro District.
  • There are always tensions between refugees and host communities due to scarce resource such as firewood, water to and land animals and poverty. Host communities feel refugees are supported well using donor resources in terms of health, education and general welfare. It is also common for refugee animals to trespass into host community gardens.
  • There is always unease between refugees and host communities.

Interventions

  • Kids Sports League uses soccer in schools of Nakivale refugee settlement to integrate both refugee and host community children into play.
  • The parents of both refugee and host community children interact as coaches and spectators and this has promoted intercultural interaction, trust and understanding and social inclusion of refugee and host communities in Isingiro.

Soccer has actively served as a bridge of peaceful coexistence among refugee and host communities.

Environment protection

Challenge

  • Environment degradation in Isingiro District is exacerbated by; encroachment on wetlands, river banks and lakeshores, desilting of Lake Nakivale due to soil erosion from hills of  Kashumba and Ngarama Sub counties, existence of bare hills due to overgrazing and poor methods of farming, persistent drought due to inadequate tree and vegetation cover in the entire District, lack of interventions to carryout tree planting on bare hills, loss of soil fertility, environment pollution from dust during the dry season, pollution of environment from dust caused by road contractors during the dry season, lack of  mitigation interventions to restore the environment while carrying out private and public  physical developments on land, widespread charcoal burning without restoring the destroyed tree in various parts of  entire district. Source Isingiro District, Development Plan III 2020- 2025
  • In Uganda, 40% of plastic waste is collected for disposal and 60% is left in the environment. Source https://www.undp.org/uganda/

Interventions

  • Sporting clubs engage in the following activities;
    • Tree planting
    • Garbage collection particularly plastics
    • Awareness creation about the values of wetlands

Sensitization on   proper waste disposal