A New Script
USAID helps out-of-school girls in Uganda re-write their life’s story
It’s a warm day under a clear blue sky. And at Diyi-cuni primary school in Palabek Kal parish in Lamwo district, there is a party going on. A hundred young women dance and cheer. It is loud, but they have more than earned the right to make some noise.
This is the graduation ceremony for the USAID Integrated Community and Nutrition activity’s mentorship camps. These 100 young women are among 500 from northern Uganda who were chosen to participate in the camps — another 500 participated in similar camps in the southwest — and this graduation marks the culmination of a journey that has already changed their lives.
In Uganda, about 70 percent of girls will drop out of school before graduating. The mentorship camps give these girls a chance to rewrite their life’s journey.
Nancy Anena got pregnant and dropped out of school when she was just 14. Her parents forced her to marry the man who impregnated her. The marriage was abusive, but Nancy — young, poor, and uneducated — stayed and bore two more children until she finally couldn’t take any more.
“I was not happy,” she says. “I also used to drink a lot of alcohol.”
At the age of 23 she joined the camp, which is a series of three courses that teach life skills while helping girls find the courage to demand more for themselves. Key to this process is mentorship: the young women are assigned to older mentors who come from similar backgrounds but are now successful. These include teachers, nurses, and local leaders.
Working with her mentor helped Nancy turn her life around, and regular counseling helped her to stop drinking.
“When the girls first came, they wouldn’t talk,” says Sandra Ayumi, a midwife at Palabek Kal Health Center who served as a mentor. “At first, it was challenging. The girls had ‘different’ personalities,” she explains, using a Ugandan euphemism that hints at the challenges the mentors faced. “But when they came, we taught them about self-respect, and then respect for one another.”
Seventeen-year-old Proscovia Aketowana dropped out of high school after one term when her mother could not afford to pay her school fees. Her mother heard about the USAID mentorship camps and enrolled her.
“I attended the first camp and from there I learned to speak up. I told my mother that I want to go to a vocational school and learn to sew because I dream of becoming a fashion designer one day. I helped her in her small business and got money to take me to a vocational school. Now I have learned to sew,” she says. She is also working with the school’s headmaster to get herself back into formal education.
Proscovia’s story is a common one at this graduation. Person after person describes how the young women were reluctant to attend and seemingly afraid to speak, and how they have changed through the camps. The project’s regional team lead, Bonny Oola, says his message to the girls is that despite dropping out of school, they can take control of their lives. They can have a voice in their homes and communities, they can make the right choices, and they can work hard and be financially independent.
“Our program helps the girls to speak openly about their ideas and concerns, think and make informed decisions, and be in control of the actions. It’s about taking the ideas to the next level,” he explains.
It is hard to imagine that this particular group was ever anything other than boisterous and self-confident. Throughout the program, guest speakers are called up to the microphone to celebrate the young women’s achievements, but none of them are able to take much attention away from the women themselves. They cheer, sing, and dance, and when called upon, they take the microphone and share their own stories in their own words, proudly, joyously, even defiantly.
At one point they scramble away from the ceremony and return with the traditional musical instruments of their village — instruments that custom dictates are to be played by men — and led the crowd in a rousing performance. The message is clear: these young women are strong and independent. Many of them have already formed businesses — in fact, Nancy belongs to a group of graduates who opened a catering company that secured the contract to cater their own graduation!
Like Nancy and Proscovia, millions of adolescent girls in Uganda are vulnerable. The reality that awaits them when they drop out is early marriage, unpaid domestic work, and a life of poverty.
USAID believes that communities can only exit poverty if they give girls the same opportunities as boys. When girls get the opportunities they deserve, they are less likely to contract HIV, have lower pregnancy rates, their babies are born healthier, and their families are stronger. Investing in a girl’s education not only helps her but brings positive changes to the whole community.
Launched in 2018, the USAID Integrated Community Agriculture and Nutrition project works to build the next generation of self-reliant Ugandans. For the young women of Palabek Kal, that future is now.
About the Author
Betty Kagoro is a Communication Specialist at USAID’s Mission in Uganda.
