- Agriculture training and support for 840 vulnerable people
- Start-up grants for community income generating projects
- Tree cultivation and conservation, tackling deforestation
One indication that our mental health work was succeeding came when local people asked us to help them plan for the future. An integral part of our mental health programme in Patongo, was providing start up grants for community groups to set up income generating activities. In addition to providing one-to-one counselling, PCCO also provided group counselling to community groups in Patongo. A pair of counsellors was assigned to each group, listening to the members’ needs and providing support. Their feedback helped us develop the programme over the years. We were fortunate to receive three consecutive grants from the Guernsey Overseas Aid Commission and a grant from the Kenneth Miller Foundation which enabled us to support 840 community members with agricultural income generating activities. This included training in the Farmer Field School methodology of training whilst working, the start-up costs of crop farms, and tree cultivation and conservation to mitigate the wide spread deforestation that took place during the war.
Our Partner
Patongo Community Counselling Outreach
PCCO was established in 2010 to implement our ambitious mental health programme in Patongo, northern Uganda. Staffed by enthusiastic and committed survivors of the war in northern Uganda, it achieved much in the eight years that we supported it. It pioneered mental health work in Agago District, and with the help and support of our pro bono US psychologists, it brought trauma counselling techniques to thousands of community members, set up and managed an impressive HIV counselling programme and implemented a successful agricultural programme for hundreds of trauma survivors.