SALAMA | FINANCE For Life
Most women in Uganda are un-bankable. They are also without a voice. Too poor to apply for loans, they have no path to independence. Culturally dependent on their husbands, they are unable to move forward. With resources, however, they thrive, prosper and grow – together with other women like themselves.
Beginning in 2008, Salama Shield Foundation has invested in building a robust microcredit programme. The funds were initiated with $20,000 USD provided by Rotarian partnerships and has since grown to a capital fund of $88,473 USD with the generosity of private supporters.
SALAMA | FINANCE For Life addresses the needs of women providing access to small loans. These loans are provided to individuals within a credit group, formed by a community of 5-10 women seeking to change their own lives. Each are supported with training and support throughout the loan process.
Children and vulnerable youth, many orphaned by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, are also provided with income-generating opportunities. Youth are provided with a pair of goats or chickens. Animals are a source of strength, nutrition, and income-generating potential, creating enhanced opportunities for youth to continue their education and support household income-generation.
SALAMA | WATER For Life
Water is a basic need – for drinking, cooking, personal hygiene and sanitation. Yet almost 12 million people in Uganda
do not have access to safe water.
SALAMA | WATER For Life provides Ugandan communities with catchment systems for harvesting and retaining rainwater and with access to wells and bore-holes. Salama Shield works with communities to improve access to safe drinking water and to raise awareness on the importance of waste management and general household sanitation. Improved household sanitation and access to clean and safe water drastically reduce the incidence of water-borne diseases and parasites. Bringing access to water closer to households is also vital to increasing the wellbeing of young girls and boys who would otherwise spend time each day collecting water.
Our main strategic objective is to improve sanitation and increase access to clean and safe water for communities in Salama Shield's operational areas. Clean and safe water iscurrently provided through a community-accessed borehole at the community development center (CDC) in Lyantonde town.
SALAMA | HEALTH For Life
In Uganda, being healthy means living beyond the age of 5 with your mother by your side.
SALAMA | HEALTH For Life provides health education for youth, women and men in four critical areas: HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and sexual and reproductive health.
Salama Shield works to strengthen health education by specifically addressing issues of awareness, and basic information on critical health concerns.
Our main objective in this regard is, with other health partners, to build a strengthened and self-sustaining health system in Lyantonde that offers improved health services for HIV/AIDS, TB, prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV, malaria, and reproductive health. To accomplish this end goal, health system capacity needs to be increased to facilitate these changes in addition to the added value of health-issue awareness and education within communities.
SALAMA | EDUCATION For Life
More than 17 million young people in Uganda do not have the opportunity to discover their unique gifts and talents through education and school.
SALAMA | EDUCATION For Life provides HIV/AIDS orphans and vulnerable youth with the chance to learn a skilled trade
– as carpenters, brick-layers, tailors and weavers, agriculturalists and farmers, caterers and cooks.
Universal primary education (UPE) is provided by the government Uganda. However, upon completion of primary school, many students do not possess the resources to continue pursuing higher-level education. Yet, as research has shown, education remains one of the single most important factors in reducing poverty and providing opportunities for the future. Educated persons will be the leaders of the future. Help stimulate their minds, through education.
Vocational training provides an important opportunity for skill acquisition and income generating opportunities. Salama Shield is currently building, from the grassroots, a vocational centre in Lyantonde, Uganda. The centre will provide skill training with special emphasis on providing opportunities for orphans and vulnerable youth.
Vocational training will be provided in: carpentry, bricklaying, auto mechanics, culinary arts and hospitality, tailoring, and weaving. In addition, the Salama Education Centre will provide a unique crosscutting thematic programme called ‘Mubuntu Dialogues.’ Mubuntu is the idea that: “I am what I am because of who we all are.” This programme will create opportunities for all students to discuss and learn about issues beyond the vocational training programme to ensure we inspire a new generation of leaders who tackle socio-economic problems as well as driving trade and craftsmanship. The breadth of this change in the local community cannot be understated. It facilitates constructive engagement.
