At Health Promotion and Rights Watch-Uganda, we recognize that hunger and child marriage are complex issues that require a comprehensive and community-based approach. That’s why we’re working closely with local communities and schools in Bushenyi like kyamuzoora Primary school and Kyeizooba Primary School to address these issues and promote a brighter future for school going children.
Hunger is a pervasive problem in Uganda, affecting millions of people, including children. According to recent statistics, 1 in 5 children in Uganda suffers from stunting due to malnutrition. Additionally, 22% of children in Uganda drop out of school due to hunger and poverty.
Hunger can have far-reaching consequences, including teenage pregnancy and child marriage. Most families struggle to provide food for their children daily which may see child marriage as a way to alleviate their economic burden. According to Girls Not Brides some children most especially girls who drop out of school due to hunger and are more likely to be married off at a young which perpetuates child abuse that is rampant in most of the communities that we work in, with 1 in 3 children in Uganda experiencing physical or emotional abuse.
Health Promotion and Rights Watch-Uganda, is currently working with Households in local communities of Rutooma in Rwetuuha town council and schools to address the root causes of hunger, child marriage, and child abuse. Our approach includes providing training and support to parents on farming and nutrition through our small holder household Enterprise Model by encouraging and enabling households to provide food for their school-going children through different agricultural and livelihood projects. Further, HPRW is working with schools to promote education and awareness about the importance of nutrition and food security through introducing school gardens that supplement school meals milk from our farm to schools we work with.
Our community-based approach has already shown promising results. In one of the communities in Rutooma, we’ve seen a significant increase in the number of children attending school, and a decrease in the number of children dropping out due to hunger. More so through our trainings and farm visits we have built capacity of households and individual farmers to adopt integrated on-farm enterprises for sustainable and sufficient food production.
