Paicho Community Vocational School Uganda
Water, Sanitation & Hygiene
PACHEDO promotes school-based and community-engaging Water and Sanitation activities in Northern and North Eastern Uganda as well as life skills with the three-year support from the VSO/DFID Youth Development Project.
Over 1840 (1105 female, 735 male) informal and formal vulnerable youth from Paicho Community Vocational Institute and Gulu Youth Development Association in Gulu District, Anaka Community Vocational School in Nwoya District, Wera Vocational Institute in Amuria District and 2150 (1420 female and 730 male) community members around those schools trained on how to practice good sanitation and hygiene at individual level, in households and in public places including schools, e.g. making a Tippy Tap using available and cost effective materials (jerrycans). Appropriate use helps to avoid rampant infections/diseases and deaths associated with poor hand washing in their communities and families such as diarrhea, with special emphasis on young mothers and their children.
The community members around Vocational Training Institutes, Youth Development Project students and their teachers demonstrate the practical skills of erecting (making) and using Tippy Taps.
Food Security and Sustainable Livelihoods
PACHEDO gives “livelihood a glamour of hope” for conflict affected vulnerable youth of Gulu, Amuru and Nwoya, such as young mothers and unemployed youth, through community agro-processing supported by Private Sector Foundation Uganda in Partnership with ALREP/EU/Office of the Prime Minister under the project “Enhance Processing Capacity, Quality and Business Performance Project” that provided PACHEDO with agro-processing machines comprising of maize mill, huller, and combined seed cleaner aimed at engaging the vulnerable young mothers and youth farmers of of Northern Uganda into community-based agro-processing, adding value and ensuring quality production and marketing of agricultural products to local and international markets for sustainable livelihood.
Young mothers of Bungatira in Gulu District gain a livelihood from a beads making apprenticeship with support from Jolien and Netherlands’ Friends of Children Donation with special focus on improving the livelihoods of the young mothers and their children through creating job opportunities, agricultural skills, VSLA activities, marketing skills and crop production. 35 young mothers were empowered with bead making apprenticeship skills (basics for beads making, materials used, selection of paper, cutting, types of beads, vanishing, rolling, shaping and gluing). With the skills, the young mothers are able to make necklaces, earrings and hand bungles, and are able to put bright smiles on their faces once again.
PACHEDO provides opportunities and platforms for the war affected youth to ventilate their painful experiences and to rebuild their resilience and coping abilities through psychotherapies such as Cognitive Behavioral Trauma Therapy with support from Northern Uganda Youth Livelihood Development Programme of VSO/DFID in the 16 Vocational Institutions of the Acholi, Lango and Teso Sub regions. CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) techniques and approaches such as Cognitive Restructuring Technique, Exposure Therapy, Relaxation and Thought Stopping among others created an opportunity for 4000 youth to recognize and process their trauma-related memories and feelings, discharge pent-up “fight-or-flight” energy, learn how to regulate strong emotions, build or rebuild the ability to trust other people, learn how to confront strong emotions, self-monitor emotions and how to respond to them, expose the situation avoided, and remember to recall images of the exposures.
Case Lot:
Client AZ, 27 years old, narrated her story: having been in captivity for more than 20 years, the only issue that has never even a bit escaped was when one day the LRA attacked their village in Anaka, and her aunt and uncle were arrested together with her. They were tied and told to bow down their heads, her uncle was first hit on the back with an axe, and he collapsed without saying a word! The aunt looked helpless, only remembering her Jesus as her last word. She was forcefully stubbed on the chest several times with the gun bonnet; she witnessed this tragedy which kept haunting her something……..she then broke into emotions. This story alone touched four other participants’ emotions to vent a manifestation of unresolved issues in the youth of Anaka.
Reproductive Health and Gender-Based Prevention and Response
GREAT (Gender, Roles, Equality and Transformations) tool integration project for Gulu, Nwoya and Amuru district supported by USAID. The project aims to foster more equitable gender norms, improve sexual and reproductive health and decrease gender-based violence among young people.
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