Suubi Foundation

About Suubi 

Suubi means “Hope” in Luganda, the Ugandan local language.  

Mission

Improving the living conditions and future possibilities of women, youth and children in the broadest sense of the word. 

History

Stichting Suubi was founded in 2011, on its beginning it operated in Uganda, Burkina Faso and Ghana. After some years we decided to concentrate working in Uganda it being well known and accessible to us. The founder of Suubi is from Uganda she understands the operations and happenings in Uganda better than in other countries, therefore we decided for better execution of the organization goals we concentrate in Uganda.   

In the first years of our operation, we coordinated European volunteers to the countries' local organization to do volunteer work in these countries depending on the volunteer's skills. We have coordinated many social workers, and medical workers who move school to school, village to village treating people with focus on the preventive and treatment. We later started involving ourselves physically in order to create the change we wish for.  

Projects  

Over the past years Suubi has run many great projects, medical and social with the support of hundreds of individual volunteers from Europe. 

Construction 

Through the funding we constructed a two-classroom block and a playground for the community children in Ntove  at a community school Uganda which did not have enough classrooms. The children are not anymore studying under a tree. 

School renovation/Summer4change  

Every summer holiday we organize youth /family group trips to  Africa to renovate schools and provide school basic need in their reach like water tanks and construction. The intentions of doing this is to put a bridge between the poor child's school and the rich man's school buy keeping it clean and conducive for the poor child just as for the wealth family child we rapair the broken and repain it clean. We do this project as a team. This team include summer4change volunteer group, the community school children, teachers, parents, community leaders and suubi cordination team. we always have two weeks community volunteer work then one last week to go for adventure of the volunteer group choice. 

Medical interns and practitioners   

Before the outbreak of corona, we have been sending medical studentsand practitioners from Netherland and Belgium to do their profession career internship/practice in the local hospitals, this has greatly helped all parties especial the local patients. They have conducted several outreaches under the supervision of the hospital head, they have given trainings to staff where necessary, babies have been safely delivered  and they have also donated medical supplies they have corrected from holland.  The hospitals keep checking on us if we have more medical works who wish to volunteer but ofcourse because of corona people are still scared to travel with all the restrictions. 

Education and sports

For the past years we have had several teacher volunteers that have traveled with us to give eduucation classes in the communities. these volunteers have have worked with the class teachers to deliver lessons to the children. in most cases a governemnet school classroom had morethan 40 children and there is less teachers and materials in schools. 

We bring the teacher volunteer in contact with the class teacher he or she is going to work with before the travel so that she/he prepare them sleves if the suite in the class. We also encourage them to practice any sport or games with the children. This has helped the teachers to have different Ideas on how the teaching proffesion goes, the children like it too because many of these teachers mobilise funds and buy them things like books and sports materials in the ability.

Woundcare 

Wound care project since 2016, volunteers have been deployed on wound care projects. 15 schools with 3000 children are now part of the project. The aim of the project is to provide preventive care to prevent (chronic) infections, to guarantee continuity in education and to stimulate promising motor development. First aid supplies as well as hospital care (for larger wounds) are paid for. In periods when no volunteers are active, this activity can be observed by local nurses. We are looking forward to the corona end so that the schools can open again and we resume.  We are grateful to the volunteers that have treated these children some even follow them to their families to train the parents on how to handle a wound in a early stage; we need more of such people especially specialists that wish to spend their summer holidays in our local communities  

Suubi Mothers 

Stichting Suubi has also worked on its project of Suubi mothers. 

The women in the project are single mothers and widows who are very vulnerable due to little or no land ownership to grow food for their own use and livelihood. Some therefore seek refuge in other work such as housekeeping and gardening for landowners. However, this income is too low to support themselves and their children. 

From the Suubi foundation, we provide financial support and practical skills development within small-scale and feasible projects. Through start-up support, training, and development of specific skills, the mothers can actively generate income, making them self-sufficient and self-reliant. 

There has been a great transformation in women that have joined Suubi Mother Project, they have become self dependant, they can pay their bills, take care of their children, before corona they could take them to school and they sustain their home depspite being single. 

 The following are the goals of this project.  

• Increase involvement and participation in economic life. 
• Develop skills for entrepreneurship. 
• Providing financial support to enable start-ups. 
• Guidance and support through coaching and mentorship. 
• The proceeds of the small businesses set up do not only benefit the mothers themselves. 
• They donate part of the proceeds, usually in kind, to contribute to new initiatives in the community. 

Suubi child education  

In 2017, a start was made on setting up a sponsorship project for young children from underprivileged families in Uganda.  

Suubi child is a child that have difficulties to stay at school or who have not been able to start school or even who dropped out of school.  

Suubi child cannot even afford to attend government schools which are the cheapest in Uganda. We are looking at a child from the age of 4years, and the limit is not clear because the children in most cases do not attend school corresponding with their age due to a lot of social and economic challenges.  

The outbreak of covid19 has left a lot of girls and boys out of school, schools were closed since March 2020 many children have not been able to go back to school, a lot of girls have ended up pregnant, and others with no hope of continuing with school because their parents have lost their jobs.  

Covid-19 has united the world in an incredibly unique way. While it is true that everyone has struggled with the fallout of this global pandemic, it has had more serious consequences on some of the most vulnerable populations. Unfortunately, adolescent girls have been among the most adversely affected and for some, life has become downright dangerous. Many girls and boys are left vulnerable to teenage pregnancy, early childhood marriage and gender-based violence, among other devastating effects of Covid-19.  

We have realized that we are going to have a lot of single mothers that will need support if we do not help the girls and boys at early stage after corona when they can still continue with the studies despite being home for two years and others having become young parents. We have recognized the need to engage with younger girls and boys   especially the adolescent that have dropped out of school.  

Covid-19

In Uganda, as with many other countries around the world, Covid-19 has resulted in an increased rate of teenage pregnancy. To gain necessities like sanitary towels, girls have engaged in transactional sex with men who take advantage of their need for money.  

According to the police report in Mukono and Buikwe District where stichting suubi operates there have been 2530 cases of teenage pregnancies reported since the outbreak of COVID-19.  many girls are left without a partner because they fear being imprisoned this leaves the teenage mothers becoming single parents!  Incidence of early-childhood marriage is also on the rise as poverty caused by the pandemic has forced families to marry off their daughters to help alleviate financial burdens.  

In addition to early marriage, many girls are facing workforce at a young age to help provide for their families. In some communities, girls are also forced to take on much of the domestic work at home, keeping them away from seeing their friends and joining community-building activities. When schools reopen, many of these girls will not go back because their mind would have changed.  

Approach  

We have done a community -based survey in the communities. We waited until the government opened schools; this has helped us identify children that have not been able to continue with school.  Our coordinators drove through the communities identifying poor families and children who are home, they did not tell them why they are surveying instead they made it a community survey with no financial support intentions this helped us to get the real beneficiaries.  

We have found several children willing and wanting to continue with their education if given a chance l. We consider giving chances to both girls and boys from families which cannot afford government school fees.   

The articles below were published during the lockdown 2020, by Uganda’s top media houses about the effects from COVID-19 on school going children. In their case studies are in some districts of the country, but it is the picture in the rest of districts including Buikwe and Mukono where we operate. I share them for more information reference.  

Lockdown worsens teenage pregnancies - Daily Monitor 

LANGO REGION: Sharp rise in violations with COVID-19 - NTV Uganda 

2,300 school girls conceive, 128 married off during lockdown - Daily Monitor 

Source of Finance

We get finances from donations of the well-wishers. Some people dedicate their birthdays to suusi, they ask their friends and family not to buy them presents instead they donate to Suubi others make monthly donation and others make Christmas donations.

Our volunteers, travelers and intern students donate a subscription fee to Suubi for us to arrange their trip Tis is how we can get finances to keep operation, but the flow is less we need more support to achieve all our goals.