ShelterMi Safe House & Orphanage (Uganda)
REPORT OF PROJECTS September 2024
Introduction
ShelterMi Safe House and Orphanage Uganda offers emergency shelter/short-term accommodation (up to three weeks with meals, primary medical care); training on personal hygiene, life-skills, reproductive health; counseling and psycho-social support; legal Information and Court support; provision of food, shelter, and supervision of children accompanying their mothers/guardians in the shelter. It also helps women to re-enter independent living and acquire gainful employment by providing basic job skill training. In addition, it educates women and the general public on how to prevent domestic violence and provide support and intervention to survivors, through advocacy against domestic/gender-based violence.
ShelterMi SafeHouse is a secret and safe home which survivors access through referrals. Each case is kept confidential to avoid stigmatization in the communities and social media platforms, and threat from perpetrators. The shelter opened during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic due to increasing levels of domestic violence during the lockdown. The lockdowns and other restrictions imposed by the government to control the rapid spread of Covid 19 pandemic, led to an increase in the number of early teenage pregnancy, domestic and gender-based violence and trafficking of women.
Current status
At present, the facility operates a 10-bed emergency shelter, although it has rooms to operate up to a 25-bed emergency for women and their children who are victims of domestic/gender-based violence as well as teenage mothers. As at August 2024, it had admitted over 120 victims (women and children) since its establishment. The survivors are settled where they feel safe and empowered to earn a living through skills acquired or perfected at the facility.
Projects
The ShelterMi SafeHouse, through the financial and technical support of HuMan, managed to put up projects help it raise funds for meeting the day-to-day expenses for running the facility namely; piggery, gardening, motorcycle repair shop, a grocery shop and computer literacy. Over 90 piglets produced have been sold. The maize, beans and cassava produced have always been partly consumed and sold. The motorcycle repair shop is currently training 03 orphans on repair and maintenance whereas the grocery shop has since changed to a food shop. The computers literacy project stalled after high voltage of electricity blew some transistors on the motherboard. The present status of these projects is as seen below.
SafeHouse and Orphanage
The facility provides a secretive safe therapeutic environment for women who are survivors of domestic violence and other forms of abuse, economically empowerment through training, psychosocial and legal support.
The facility has admitted and resettled over 125 women and orphans vulnerable subjected to domestic abuse by their partners, relatives and in-laws.
The orphans aare divided into 3 categories: 1) those in elementary education level, 2) those at secondary education, 3) those doing vocational training in motor cycle repair, construction, and electrical installation.
The total number of orphans is 21 out of which 11 are residents at the Safe House and 10 stay with families in the village.
Challenges
Sharing of bedding
Lack of timely medical support
Intrusion and attack by perpetrators
Mistreatment of orphans staying in some homes in the community due to lack of funds
Non-payment of allowances to non-volunteer staff
SECURITY concerns
Disruption of communal peace due to violent attack of the women by their former partners after overpowering the security officer because of lack of a compound/perimeter wall to secure the building. We need a perimeter wall
School and Kindergarten
ShelterMi Orphanage started a kindergarten and lower primary school to cater for the education needs of the growing number of orphans and children from the community who could not access quality education in the neighbouring private schools. Our goal is to provide quality basic education and life skills based on humanist principles.
Achievements
· Admission of pupils and Operation of the school and Kindergarden
Challenges
· The school has 70 students, of which 31 are male and 39 female. Of these, 23 are orphans.
Teaching staff
There are 02 males, 03 females and one administrator. Due to lack of financial resources, we are unable to increase the ratio of teachers to pupils.
Teaching and learning materials
The number of pupils has exceeded the number of teaching and learning materials available. There is no library now.
Classroom and Administrative office
The school is currently renting an incomplete building to run its operations. The monthly rent is paid from the funds obtained from the school fees paid by children from the community. There are 7 classrooms and one administrative office which also acts as the staff room. The teachers can only attend to the pupils in classrooms after the classes are for the day is done. Below the picture shows Standard 7 pupils preparing to do end of term exams in the school compound due to lack of classrooms.
Community concerns
· Disruption of teaching and learning during rainy season due to lack of sufficient classrooms
· Lack of learning materials
Funding
· Lack of funds to acquire learning and teaching materials
· Late payment of teaching staff
Suggestion
· Construction of classrooms and library/computer centre
Community Garden
The garden consists of .6 acres of land. It was donated to the ShelterMi to grow crops by a member of the community called Bwana Kavuma. The land is cultivated in 3 seasons. Excess produce is sold to community members and money obtained buys items used to cook at the facility such as salt, sugar, and oil.
The garden produces beans, maize, cassava, sweet potatoes and bananas. The yield of each varies based on the rains and seeds. Not all women work in the garden. Some have medical conditions. For the last two seasons, we managed to get only good harvest of bananas and sweet potatoes. Beans and maize didn't do well.
The proceeds from bananas, cassava and sweet potatoes is used to buy high yielding seeds, and tools. The garden needs funding because the market price is very little. Maize and beans offer good price.
Challenges
· Poor or low production per acre
· Low prices offered by the community for the prices
Suggestion
· Acquire funds for high yielding seeds and organic fertilizers
Piggery project
The project provides an opportunity to encourage young farmers to take up piggery on a commercial scale. Under this project, ShelterMi provides training to the women and members of the community. Upon completion, the members of the public buy piglets and the sale proceeds are used to buy feeds and medicines.
The proceeds from the piggery project to buy feed, medication and repair the piggery. We do not slaughter any animal at the shelter. We mainly sell the piglets.
Achievements
· Trained over 55 women and community members
· Sold and distributed 60 plus piglets
Challenges
· Lack of funds to buy feeds for the pigs
· Conversion of the pig dung to generate
Food shop
The grocery and retail shop was converted to a food shop on the advice of the management. The food shop deals mainly on vegetables and grains produced from the community garden. Its main objective is to provide excellent food services by offering wholesome, fairly priced food prices (raw and cooked) to the community.
We Need
· Iron sheets for the roof
· Cooked food display items
· Microwave for warming food
· Grain storage facility
· Banana crisp frying and packing machine
Motorcycle Repair Shop
The motor cycle repair and maintenance shop is up and running. We trained 18 orphans and 10 boys. Proceeds gained from the garage by selling oil, spare parts and repairing motorcycles - are used to buy tools, more spare parts, tools, feed the orphans.
Sewing Project
Currently, we do not have sewing project. It has been strongly proposed that sewing would help generate more funds if started. We seeking funds and or sewing machines to establish such a project.
Water Well
The community appreciates the water well very much. It has helped in saving the money used to buy water and prevented rape incidents of young girls, reduce time spend fetching water and consumption of unfit water.
Cooperation
The women support each other in business, especially those who resettle in the same locality. Most of the time they buy products from each other and work together, come and buy produce from ShelterMi, support each other to start small scale business such sale of second hand clothes, tomatoes and onions, and fish.
On the whole, the community and residents are happy and willing to protect the inmates.
Concerns
We are concerned about:
ex-spouses who try to forcefully access the facility to get to their wives
lack of medical facility mode of transport. We currently rely on motor cycle transport to rush pregnant women to hospital and other emergency cases.
Conclusion
The main sources of funding the operations and other activities at the facility are from the projects and well-wishers. This includes the Safehouse and orphanage, school and kindergarten, garden, food shop, and piggery.