Our program currently supports 20 orphans and vulnerable children. In addition, we're also supporting 150 children with disabilities.
OVC Mbarara Field Officer monitoring the income-generating projects of caretakers (in this case, it was growing passion fruits)
We focus on the child, with the family at heart, committed to keeping families together by preventing family separation in the first place.
OVC Mbarara's main goal for fundraising is to ensure the sustainability of family-based care for vulnerable children and children with disabilities.
We're raising funds to help us continue providing our child-centered, family-focused resources so that more families can find hope, support, and empowerment.
Our program seeks to engage through child advocacy, family assistance, and community events.
We support activities that keep children safe, loved, and cared for at home, thus preventing school dropouts, neglect, maltreatment, abuse, and child-related insecurity in the family.
Field officer viewing a caretaker's tea garden as an economic activity to sustain their family
A caretaker who learned stone quarrying to financially sustain her family and afford schooling for her children
A caretaker's goat rearing project to financially sustain their family
OVC Mbarara field officer monitoring the at-home piggery project that will sustain multiple families
Currently, we support:
Children with disabilities receiving their resettlement package after their vocational training
Blind children receiving learning material from OVC Mbarara program staff
Home visit to this sweet child's home to assess need for family-strengthening and case management
OVC Mbarara social worker talking with a family member during a home visit
What is Family-based care?
Family-based care focuses on providing the love, nurture, and security that allows a child to thrive through living in families with biological parents, kinship care, foster care, or adoption.
Also, a vital part of supporting family care is strengthening families to prevent unnecessary separation.
Our Program
To ensure the sustainability of family-based care, we are doing the following:
Changing the way we care to a family-based approach
Children should be families and kinship care, not orphanages.
Research affirms that the best environment for children is within a loving, secure family.
At OVC-SP, we seek the best interest of each child we serve.
That's why we're committed to strengthening families, and we are now shifting towards a family-based care model.
Children have the best chance to thrive when they grow up in a family. That's why we're committed to strengthening families, and we are now shifting towards a family-based care model.
Our Work
and why it matters.
Our program's transition emphasizes sustainable family-based care more than institutionalization while advocating for children's best interests
Group counseling session at school led by an OVC Mbarara counselor
Group counseling session at school led by an OVC Mbarara counselor
Group counseling session at school led by an OVC Mbarara counselor
Our Programs
We want to see a society where all children are empowered live to their full potential with their rights advocated for in the community.
Ensuring the sustainability of family-based care for children
Our main goal for fundraising is to ensure the sustainability of family-based care for children. We're raising funds to help us continue providing our child-centered, family-focused resources so that more families can find hope, support, and empowerment.
Our program seeks to engage through child advocacy, family assistance, and community events. We support activities that keep children safe, loved, and cared for at home, thus preventing school dropouts, neglect, maltreatment, abuse, and child-related insecurity in the family.
Who do we serve?
OVC Mbarara is helping support family-based care services for children.
We serve partially and totally orphaned children, children in kinship care (where extended families take care of children whose parents have died or abandoned them), children with both parents but living in vulnerable circumstances, and children with disabilities from low-income families.
These family members receive financial support, food, school allowance, health care, counseling, and parenting coaching from our staff.
Preventing Separation
We focus on preventing unnecessary family separation. We also provide community education on disabilities, child protection, and the importance of family-based care.
Continuum of Care
Caring for children and families (family-strengthening)
We know that children have the best chance to thrive when they grow up in a family. Children with disabilities should not be an exception to this. That's why we're committed to strengthening families and helping keep them together.
How we help children
We empower children with positive attitudes and a positive self-concept. Through counseling and facilitation of practical skills, children can appreciate themselves better and, in turn, be appreciated within the community.
Improving self-esteem also increases opportunities for children to share balanced life as they dream bigger than before, reaching their goals and aspirations; socially, intellectually, economically, and spiritually.
We ensure quality education, healthcare, spiritual development, and skills training for the children we serve for future self-reliance.
For children with disabilities, we also ensure access to disability services and improve a child's environment at home and school as needed to accommodate their individual needs and abilities (constructing ramps and providing adaptive equipment when needed).
How we help caretakers and parents
We help parents and caretakers gain skills that can sustain their families for the long term, including:
- Case management, conducting home visits to evaluate support needs within families (making referrals when necessary)
- Necessities, such as food and healthcare as needed
- Parenting skills coaching
- Counseling and psychosocial support to strengthen caretaker's capacity to better care for their children
- Life skills training and economic planning
- Job skill development and training on income-generating activities so that they earn income - such as baking, knitting, sewing, welding, computers, bookkeeping, and more
Lobbying and community advocacy
We encourage children with special needs to believe in themselves. We show that we believe in them by engaging in advocacy and lobbying from different stakeholders.
We work closely with other duty-bearers and service providers, engaging in advocacy for children through organized meetings, appeal writing, information sharing, and fundraising to meet the basic needs of our program beneficiaries and nearby families.