The Change the Story project has been empowering mothers in Uganda thanks to UK Aid Match FCDO funding — Street Child

To ensure the sustainability of this project, Street Child had to look further than just providing the skills to the mothers – we also needed to provide them with a safe space and support to make sure that they continued to be able to achieve their greatest potential. Thanks to FCDO funding, 40 Mother Care Centres were either refurbished or strengthened to provide the women with a safe, secure space to act a centre point for these groups for years to come. We also worked with 1,544 male caregivers who were taken through specific life skills training which helped to change their attitude towards women’s involvement in household and community decisions. Working with these male caregivers was crucial to the success of the project and ensured that no mother was restricted from achieving their best because of their gender.

COVID-19 had a devastating impact on these communities and haltered activities which meant we had to change the way we were operating to ensure that the project could continue to support these young mothers and male caregivers. By working together with FCDO, the project team and local Community Based Trainers we were able to be flexible and quickly adapt our activities to ensure that these mothers could still be reached, whilst ensuring theirs, and the communities, safety. Due to restrictions on movement and gatherings, we empowered the mothers to be their own trainers and conducted peer-to-peer learning sessions. With the support from the local districts, we were able to empower a lead mother to conduct training sessions to new mother groups. This not only enhanced the lead mother’s knowledge, whilst ensuring the new mothers received training, but it also created a new sustainable method of learning after the project finished. This successfully utilised and empowered the mothers to be their own source of knowledge and continue to learn.