PROJECTS IMPLEMENTED

COMMUNITY MOBILIZATION FOR AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION

The department of household and community Transformation has been working towards addressing the Global Sustainable Development Goal number one and two of reducing Poverty and Hunger among the Communities. This involved community mobilization through clustering and group formation.

In May 2021, the Department registered 1,408 Farmer Groups throughout the Diocese. The groups included organized through a network of the over seven hundred Churches in the Diocese of West Lango. These were youth farmer’s Groups, Mothers Union Farmer Groups and Fathers Union Farmer Groups. The idea was to prepare and position them to benefit from the Government of Uganda Parish Development Model. If strengthened, we believe that it will transform the livelihood of our Christians and communities through boosting agricultural Production, reducing instances of food insecurity and increasing Household income through the sale of surplus agricultural produce.

GOOD HEALTH AND WELL-BEING

Diocese of West Lango has a network of health facilities. This includes St. Luke Health Center III which is located opposite St. Peter’s Cathedral, Aduku. The Diocese is committed to improving on the existing facilities and where necessary open new ones in line with the Global Sustainable Development Goal number three of enhancing Good Health and Well-being.

The Department of Household and Community Transformation is also in Partnership with Vitamin Angels, a non-profit organization located in Santa Barbra, California, United States of America for support to provide Multivitamins for Pregnant women, and children under five years of age. We are grateful that nearly four million doses of Micro Nutrients, Multivitamins and de-wormers have been supplied and distributed to our communities through our health service networks and government facilities in Kwania, Oyam, Apac and Kole Districts.

ONEDAY HEALTH, NEW ZEALAND

Diocese of west Lango is in Partnership with OneDay Health, Hollyford Ave, Christchurch, New Zealand –a charity and not for profit organization the purposes delivering affordable, high-quality primary health

care to low-income communities in the Diocese of West Lango, especially in hard to reach areas where government facilities are far. 

Secondly, the partnership with OneDay Health shall create a financially sustainable model for at-scale delivery of primary healthcare to empower Local Communities to sustainably manage their own healthcare needs.”

We have already opened two OneDay Health Clinics in Myene and Atana Parishes. We plan to open six more clinics by June 2022.

GENDER JUSTICE AND EQUALITY

The Diocese of West Lango has been working on gender Justice for the last six years, the fifth and sixth year being funded by CivFund through the Department of Household and Community Transformation.

The key milestone in the year 2021 was garnering support from the Local Government leaders of Inomo Sub-county, Aduku Sub-county and Aduku Town Council especially L.C. III Chairpersons and their female Councilors, Sub-County Court female members, Local Council III speakers and Community Development officers, Mothers Union and Women Guild from both the Anglican and Catholic Churches, Parish Priests and Lay Readers.

We focused this group to seek their support and collaboration during the project implementation since most of the cases of natural resource injustice pass through them and in most cases are mismanaged from their desks.

We also intended and deliberately targeted women in these key positions to empower them to the cause of fellow women some of whom are already widowed, some are divorced due to domestic violence meted upon them, those who are born out of wedlock and are settled with their uncles. These groups of women are not only marginalized but are also entangled in a chauvinistic society where they face extreme marginalization to equitably utilize natural resources especially land which our project mainly focuses on. Our target was to meet seventy (70) of these Key stakeholders and at least fifty-four (54) who form 77.14% were met.

Our society is dominated by male chauvinism yet women rely on male dominated clan systems to access natural resources like land, which out project mainly focuses on. Unfortunately, land administration is also done by men in the clan systems which treat women unfairly especially female heads of household like widows, divorced women, unmarried women and those born outside wedlock.

The married women are also denied adequate rights to either use land or benefit from the produce thereof as men abuse them that they did not bring with them land at marriage.

The situation is even worst in cases of limited cultivatable land where men always forcefully use most of the land to cultivate cash crops which are sold off upon harvest to finance extramarital affairs and drunkenness, leaving the women in deplorable states to surfer with children even in the agonizing seasons of famine due the changing climate fueled by environmental destruction which has made food insecure wide spread in the community.

The problem disunity among women to confront all these abuses as a group has not helped the situation either. instead some women are used by land grabbers to character assassinate fellow women as disrespectful to their husbands, clan leaders, or accuse them of being sexually immoral, or that they are engaged in witchcraft among others.

One key milestones in the year 2021 was to garner support from Local Government leaders of Inomo Sub-county, Aduku Sub-county and Aduku Town Council especially L.C. III Chairpersons and their female Councilors, Sub-County Court female members, Local Council III speakers and Community Development officers, Mothers Union and Women Guild from both the Anglican and Catholic Churches, Parish Priests and Lay Readers.

The rationale of meeting this group was to seek their support and collaboration during the project implementation since most cases of natural resource injustice pass through them and are mismanaged from their desks.

On this particular activity, our target was to meet seventy (70) of these key stakeholders and fifty-four (54) who form 77.14% were met and their support, collaboration and commitment to use their various positions to support the project was secured.

The Church leaders, especially Mothers Union, Women Guild, Lay Readers and Priests who have not been using their positions effectively to promote equitable use of natural resources especially land among women and men, have committed to promote mindset change against male chauvinism against women on natural resources use.

Female members of Local Council Courts and Clan Leadership who earlier cowed down in the face of discrimination against women during cases that were brought to their courts have committed to collectively use their positions to influence decisions that would be made during the ruling of cases.

The men who have been perpetrators of injustice against women have also committed to be male Climate Justice Champions for women.