Here’s what we achieved in 2015…
In Rwanda:
·Women learned new vocational skills that helped them earn an income: In our urban project, women learned hairdressing and cookery and 98% said their income had increased since they joined Aspire; on average, the women were earning about £24/$34 per month by the end of 2015. Thirteen graduates have also secured jobs. In our rural project, the women learned commercial agricultural skills and earned £3,507/$4,968 from their bean harvests.
·Children at Aspire’s childcare centre had a head start with their education: 67 children attended Aspire’s urban childcare centre each week and 274 children attended the rural childcare centre while their mothers studied at Aspire.
·Women received emotional and practical support from the Aspire social workers: 202 women in the urban and rural Aspire projects received help from the social workers this year.
In northern Uganda:
·The impact of our group counselling became clear: This year we surveyed 500 of the 840 people who have received group counselling and found that the percentage of people who had suicidal thoughts had reduced from 9% to only 2%; the percentage of people having flashbacks had reduced from 25% to 11%; and the percentage of people thinking about self-harming had reduced from 9% to 3%.
·People with HIV/AIDS or those at risk of contracting the disease received important health information and support: The counsellors counselled 947 people individually and gave talks at the HIV Clinic on subjects such as malaria prevention, family planning, testing children for HIV, adherence to ARVs, the impact of alcohol on ARVs etc, reaching another 3,800 people. The counsellors also distributed 3,000 condoms to encourage safe sex practices.
·People recovering from mental illnesses started earning money through agricultural income generating projects: 7 groups (180 people) received start up costs and training so they could start their own crop farming projects.
·Our project participants shared information about mental illness: 90% of people surveyed said they had shared their learning with their children, and 55% said they had shared the knowledge they have learned with between 5 and 10 people (this amounts to sharing the knowledge with between 2,217 and 2,913 people not in PCCO’s programme).