New Field Partner: Empowering women and out-of-school youth in Uganda with YICE

We are thrilled to announce our new partnership with Youth Initiative for Community Empowerment!

In Uganda, as is the case in many African countries, women face a wide range of challenges including discrimination, low socioeconomic status and often violation of basic rights. Discrimination reduces their chances of becoming educated and economically self reliant. Moreover, women often become reliant on abusive men at home.

The same situation is seen among young women -- they become exposed to sex at an early age either for economic survival or for other reasons, and as a result, we've seen a rise in HIV/AIDS reates among this group.

Fortunately, there are institutions in Africa that are addressing these issues, and one of them is the Youth Initiative for Community Empowerment. This initiative is one of the first that was conceived as a solution to young women's limited access to valuable information and community development services in the Mubende district of Central Uganda.

Founded in 2010 by youth volunteers who lived in the Mubende district, YICE aims to bring rural communities together to enable vulnerable women and youth to live healthy, productive lives.

How does YICE work?

Through its community groups, YICE offers sexual and reproductive health classes, training for women in farming, food security and nutrition, as well as programs to support youth capacity building, improving livelihoods for orphans and elderly women, and care for people living with HIV/AIDS and disabilities.



YICE’s Women Enterprise Development Network builds the capacity of rural women to identify and manage small enterprises, while its Sexual Reproductive Health and HIV/AIDS programs offer sensitization workshops and conduct voluntary counseling and testing. Today, YICE has reached over 250 youths with HIV/AIDS programming and 175 women with home visits. At the same time, it has enabled 5 of these women to start anti-retroviral treatment. The initiative also supported 10 widows and 5 out-of-school girls to establish small size farming enterprises to produce vegetables and livestock.



The organization also plans to offer a financial literacy program for youth to help them become economically independent and build stronger livelihoods. This program will target mainly young women and aims to build both their knowledge about finances and their self reliance.

Kiva is very excited to partner with YICE and help the organization reach even more vulnerable women, including single mothers and out-of-school girls in Mubende.

If you want to support specialized agricultural programs for vulnerable women and help them start their own farming businesses, then these loans are the right choice for you.

LEND TO A YICE PARTNER TODAY! Many lenders are interested in these loans, so we’re sorry if we’re out for now. More are on the way!

Have questions about YICE? Send them our way at blog@kiva.org.

Images courtesy of YICE.