Hello, my name is Dr. Christine Mbabazi Mpyangu and this fundraiser is to help support women that were formerly abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in Northern Uganda. The goal is to help improve the lives of these women and their children.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The war in Northern Uganda affected many people but a special category left with serious challenges that make their reintegration into the community difficult are the young women who were abducted and recruited by the LRA as girls.

 

While with their captors they served as fighters, babysitters, informers, cooks, and sexual slaves. As a result, they conceived and gave birth to their children in the forest. Upon returning to their communities either by escape or rescue, real-life plays out differently for each one of them and the stories are varied, including a few successful ones who were welcomed back to their communities, went back to school, and remarried with employment.

 

However, there are many who have not been privileged to settle down. For my doctoral studies, I had the pleasure of meeting and interviewing 15 young women from 2008-2011. These women are now mature young women living in difficult conditions including poverty, lack of medical care, inability to get employment, etc.

 

Despite all that, they are resilient in doing whatever is possible to survive including farming in borrowed land (the majority do not own land), selling small household items like matchboxes, silverfish, charcoal, etc. But that is not enough to enable them to pay rent, medical bills, support their children in school (most of them are single mothers).

 

 

 

 

Financially, they would like to strengthen and expand their businesses; they desire to save with other women groups to increase their economic base and improve their farming output as well. They are also interested in working together as a group, to stay accountable and enhance one another’s potential because they are aware that “hand-outs” cannot sustain them. Our previous interactions have emphasized resilience, hard work, and self–reliance as key elements of a respectable life.

 

100% of the funds you donate will be going to a pool of funds shared by the fifteen women. I regularly follow them up as they navigate life and work hard for a better livelihood and dignified life despite their difficult past.

 

For more information, please feel free to contact me;

Dr. Christine Mbabazi Mpyangu

[email redacted].uk/[email redacted].ug/[email redacted]

256772436739

 

Thank you very much for your donation and for partnering with me to transform these women's lives!