In 2009 Straight Talk

Foundation (STF) produced

over 12 million newspapers
and 5000 half-hour radio
shows for adolescents and
adults. It reached over 255,000
young people, parents and
teachers through its face-to-
face work.

STF’s materials are the main

and often only source of
affirming, values-based
and scientifically-accurate
information on HIV, sexuality
and growing up in most
Ugandan communities.

STF sends its materials to

18,600 schools, 1780 health
centres, and 1040 churches
and mosques, and 1600 CBOs.
It also works with 450 NGOs.

STF creates “conversations”

to address the drivers of HIV
epidemic and bring about
social change.

In 2009 it began a new focus

on young positives and
adolescents with special needs.

Plot 4 Acacia Avenue, Kololo,

P.O. Box 22366 Kampala, Uganda,
Tel: (256 31) 262030, 262031,
Fax: (256 41) 534858,
Email: info@straighttalkuganda.org,
Website: www.straight-talk.or.ug,
General Scribd site:
http://www.scribd.com/Straight%20
Talk%20Foundation

Report Design: Michael eB. Kalanzi

In 2008 STF had 77 staff and interns in its head office

in Kampala. However, with teams constantly traveling
upcountry, it was never possible to get them all together.
The above photo was taken in January 2010. In total STF
has 144 staff across Uganda.

is a Ugandan NGO, set up in 1997. It grew out of a
teen newspaper, Straight Talk, started in 1993.
Today it practises Communication
for Social change. Its main focus is
preventing HIV in ADOLescents.
STF also supports Parents and TEachers
to have safer and healthier sexual lives and to help
adolescent have safer transitions to adulthood.
STF adheres to a Know your epidemic-
know your response approach and
follows a Sexual health promotion model.
In 2009 STF worked in 17 languages. STF
communicates through Radio, print and
face-to-face.
STF’s is concerned for the well-being of all
adolescents and their families. However, it is
particularly concerned about the most-at-risk,
especially Girls, Orphans, adolescents
living with HIV or with special needs,
and adolescents in complex environments such as
fishing communities.
In Uganda 12% of girls are married by age 15
and 46% by 18. Married girls face a multitude
of challenges. They usually have less mobility,
less access to media and less autonomy in
decision making than unmarried girls or
married women. They are often isolated from
their peers.
Because they have regular sex that is rarely
protected, they are at high risk of HIV infection:
89% of ever married girls aged 15-19 have
started child-bearing.
Population Council, 2009. The adolescent experience
in- depth: using data to indentify and reach the most
vulnerable young people: Uganda 2006.
ABC Abstain, Be faithful, Condom use
ARVs Anti-Retrovirals
ASRH Adolescent sexual and reproductive health
BCC Behaviour change communication
CBO Community-based Organization
DHS Demographic and Health Survey MoES Ministry of Education and Sports
ECP Emergency contraception pills
FGC Female genital cutting
FGD Focus group discussion
FP Family planning
GYC Gulu Youth Centre
SUPPORT FOR THE BATWA
With funds from Dutch NGO Cordaid, in
2009 STF started to work with one of
Uganda’s poorest and most marginalized
groups, the Batwa. Former forest people
who are landless, members of this group
are sometimes called “pygmies”.
Batwa women are often sexually exploited
by people they call Abaturaja or “citizens”,
a reference to non-Batwa.
“Abaturaja come to us at night for sex
and give us HIV. We try to stay away from
them,” says Ventina, the Batwa queen.
“Another problem is that we do not guide
our children about growing up. This is
because each one of us cares mostly
about food for survival.”
“The Batwa have shallow knowledge about
HIV,” notes Quinta Apio, STF’s special
needs officer who spent time with the
Batwa in Kisoro in 2009. “Poverty causes
unsafe sex as they have something-for-
something love.”
Under the Cordaid grant 2009-12,
Quinta and her team will meet two Batwa
communities in Kisoro every quarter. At
right is Ventina (with white beads) and her
group of Batwa.
STF Board of Directors
Chair: Aggrey Charles Odere, Rev Gideon Mondo Kyateka, Anne Akia
Kibenge, Principal Advocate, Lex Byamugisha, Assistant Fiedler, Country
Assistant Uganda Christian Aid Commissioner for Representative,
Secretary, MoES Youth, MoGLSD Pathfinder Int’
PMTCT Prevention of mother-to-child transmission
HCT HIV counselling and testing PSI Population Services International
IDI In-depth interview PWDs People with disabilities
IDP Internally displaced person 4Rs Runyankole/Rukiga/Rutoro/Runyoro
KYC Kitgum Youth Centre SGBV Sexual and gender-based violence
LRA Lord’s Resistance Army SRH Sexual and Reproductive Health
STF Straight Talk Foundation Dr Frank Kaharuza, Justina Kihika, Oliva Muhumuza, Catharine Julie Wiltshire,
MOU Memorandum of Understanding STI Sexually Transmitted Infection Director, Research, Freelance Headteacher, Watson, Executive
NGO Non-governmental organisation UGX Uganda shillings CDC/UVRI Consultant Railway President, STF, Director, STF,
OVC Orphans and vulnerable children UHSBS Uganda HIV/AIDS Sero-behavioural Survey Children’s PS Ex-oficio Ex-oficio
PEP Post-exposure prophylaxis UPE Universal Primary Education
PEPFAR President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief USE Universal Secondary Education
 Table of Contents
Message from the President 2 Radio topics & partnerships 27
Radio maps and letters 28-29
Milestones in 2009 3
SEXUALITY & SPECIAL NEEDS 30
PRINT 4
Letters to STF print 11 FACE-TO-FACE 32
Topi & distribution 12 Outreach and training 34
Talking points 13 Youth centres 38
ST and YT at a glance 14 Sexual violence & PEP 40

INTERNS & VOLUNTEERS 42

TREE TALK & FARM TALK 16
SPECIAL PROJECTS 43
RADIO 20
Radio for youth 24 RESEARCH & EVALUATION 46
Radio for parents 25
Radio for the Pokot 26 FINANCE & ADMINISTRATION 47

Milestone: December
2009, the first Young Talk in
Braille.

Girls in a secondary school in Kisoro. Schooling is a precarious experience.

Currently just 4% of girls in Uganda complete secondary school. Schooling is
hugely beneficial, even if the quality of education is not high. In-school girls have
lower reported rates of sexual activity than out-of-school girls.
Population Council, 2009. The adolescent experience in- depth: using data to indentify and reach the
most vulnerable young people: Uganda 2006.
STF 2009 ANNUAL REPORT 
Message from the President
I
n 2009, our sixteenth year of
work, STF strove purposefully
to do more for more people and
to do it better. Quantity (reach)
and quality were our themes.
Complacency is not an option.
We do some of the best work in
adolescence and communication
for social change on the globe. But
it is not enough as we face rising
HIV prevalence in Uganda and an
increasingly unequal world.
As we endeavored to “do the right
thing, do it right and do enough of
it”, we launched three new radio
shows. About 250,000 adolescents
and adults, previously isolated by
language, could now ask their own
questions and tell their own stories.
For Straight Talk and Young Talk newspapers, we
increased print runs. As school enrolment rises, these
papers remain the main sexuality and HIV education
materials for Uganda’s eight million adolescents.
Our outreach team blazed trails in Karamoja. There
grandmothers told us that, after the age of 40, they
feel sex is undignified and encourage their husbands
to seek other partners--we never stop learning that
sex is culturally-specific. In Amuru, Moyo and Adjumani
districts, we opened mini youth centres, which in just
five months reached over 20,000 youth. STF now has
five youth centres, with our longstanding sites in Gulu
and Kitgum reaching over 60,000 youth in 2009.
The life stage of adolescence is lengthening in
Africa, as young people take longer to make key
life transitions. Uganda is part of a new trend of
“postponement of first intercourse in females
and earlier sexual activity among males”
(Sauvain-Dugerdil, 2008). Among other things,
girls are staying in school longer and marrying
later, so more are starting sex before marriage.
These subtle changes contribute to equally
complex shifts in the HIV epidemic.
In 2009, such changes meant that we avidly
and endlessly re-tooled our approach. We had
learning afternoons with outside speakers
and drew up policies on child protection and
young positives. We designed quality checklists
for our radio and print materials and new log
books to capture our work in the field.
Staff changes contributed to enhanced quality
as well. We appointed directors for northern
Uganda and special projects and recruited Julie
 STF 2009 ANNUAL REPORT
Wiltshire to be our new Executive
Director. Formerly Country Manager
for Marie Stopes and Chief of Party
for Engender Health, we welcome
her wisdom and insight.
For all we were able to do in 2009,
we thank the adolescents and youth
who consumed what we offered
them with eagerness. Over 50,000
wrote letters to us, often telling us
their most private worries, thereby
contributing to the iterative loop
that makes our work good.
We also thank parents and teachers,
most of whom bravely see us as
their allies, and our colleagues in
the Ministries of Health, Gender
and Education and at the Uganda AIDS Commission.
We thank our board for its oversight and mourn
the loss of our friend and board member, Dorothy
Oulanyah, a distinguished expert on orphans and
vulnerable children. STF is also deeply grateful to
donors who, through many changes of staff over the
years, recognized the value of a steady supply of
scientifically-accurate and culturally-sensitive sexuality
and HIV education materials.
The most inspiring book for STF in 2009 was the
classic Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire
(1970). It reminds us not to carry out “banking”
education, viewing beneficiaries as empty passive
objects in which we “deposit” our knowledge. “Banking
education resists dialogue,” wrote Freire. ”Problem-
posing education regards dialogue as indispensable to
the act of cognition which unveils reality.”
This report describes how STF used problem-solving
education and dialogue in
2009 to help adolescents
become creative and
critical thinkers. We did
this with humility. For, as
Freire says: “How can I
dialogue if I always project
ignorance onto others and
never perceive my own?”
Thank you for reading it
.
Catharine Watson
March
The Danish Minister
for Development, Ulla
Toernaes, visits STF
Gulu Youth Centre
Milestones in 2009

January
STF recruits a
young positive’s
officer, Nuru
Kisitu, who was
born with HIV.

July
STF launches a
radio show for
youth in Madi.
Robert Chaciga
is the presenter.

September
STF launches youth
radio shows in
Lepthur and Pokot.
Joyce Nakia is the
Lepthur presenter.

April
STF starts
intensive work
with people with
disabilities.

June
Public health
nurse Julie
Wiltshire
becomes STF’s
new executive
director

December
STF signs a
$1 million three year
agreement with
the Royal Danish
Embassy to support
Tree Talk

STF 2009 ANNUAL REPORT 

Girls in a secondary school listen
pensively to an STF mobiliser, a
Straight Talk open before them.

Of girls 15-19, 46% are out of

school, 31% in primary school and
22% in secondary school. School
is protective against HIV for girls
because it protects them from
early marriage.

Most sexually active adolescents

are married. Only a quarter of

Print
never married girls aged 15-19
have ever had sex.

Population Council, 2009. The adolescent

experience in- depth: using data to
indentify and reach the most vulnerable
young people: Uganda 2006.

 STF 2009 ANNUAL REPORT

S
TF newspapers have been present
in secondary schools since 1993.
STF‘s work has become part of the
fabric of life for Ugandan adolescents.
Most teachers cannot remember a time
before Straight Talk and Young Talk,
STF’s papers for secondary and primary
schools respectively.

Since October 1993, Straight Talk has

come out ten times a year (Nov-Dec is
a double issue; January a calendar). The
same is true for Young Talk, launched
at Luwero Boys Primary School in
February 1998. This steadfastness has
won STF the trust of adolescents and the
educational establishment.

In 2009 STF sent 30 copies of Straight

Talk to each of 3108 secondary schools
and 28 copies of Young Talk to each
of 13,111 primary schools. Secondary
schools have a population of about 1.1
million students; the three upper primary
classes hold about 2,320,000 pupils.
Thus, in 2009, there was one Young Talk
for every six pupils and one Straight Talk
for every 11 students.

STF newspapers are highly cost efficient.

In 2009, it cost just UGX 56 (US$0.03)
to print one Straight Talk and UGX
47 (US$0.02) to print one Young Talk.
Excluding salaries but including postage,
Straight Talk costs UGX 280 million a
year and Young Talk UGX 385 million. If
just 50% of pupils read one newspaper a
year, the cost per learner reached once
would be UGX 194 or US$0.10. If salaries
and overheads are included, the cost per Of boys 15-19, 36% are out-of-school, 39% in primary, 24% in
young person reached is about twice that secondary and 1% in higher education. The average gap between age at
amount, similar to the US$0.25 found by first sex (AFS) and marriage is four years for boys compared to one for
an analysis of STF Print by Family Health girls. As such, boys have more premarital sex than girls. In Uganda, AFS
International in 2006. is stable or decreasing for boys but increasing for girls, a pattern seen
across much of Africa (Zaba et al, 2008; Slaymaker et al, 2009).

Newspaper/print material Issues Print run Copies/2009

Calendar (ST and YT) 2 150,000 each 300,000
Straight Talk 10 average 312,000 3,120,000
Straight Talk in local languages 5 100,000 x 4 plus 1 x 60,000 460,000
Young Talk 10 average 506,200 5,062,000
Farm Talk 3 150,000 450,000
Tree Talk 3 20,000 x2 + 200,000 240,000
Teacher Talk (three for primary; one for post-primary) 4 300,000 1,200,000
Everyday Health Matters in English, 4Rs, Luganda 3 300,000 + 100,000 x 2 500,000
Scouts Voice (Kenya) 2 60,000 120,000
Scouts Voice (Uganda) 2 50,000 100,000
Dong Paco Karacel (Lwo and English) 4 1500 x 2 + 6000 x 2 15,000
Young Talk in Braille 1 150 150
TOTAL publications 49 12,055,150

STF 2009 ANNUAL REPORT 

Readership In 2008 STF collected qualitative
Straight Talk and Young Talk data on readership from over 400
are avidly read. The best data youth, teachers and parents in
on readership comes from a Bugiri, Kitgum and Kasese. The
Population Council study of 2040 issue at stake was: are STF’s papers
adolescents in Soroti, Arua, still valued and relevant?
Ntungamo, Apac, Kisoro and
Kamuli in 2005-6. Of those in Published in a report called “It
secondary school, 85% had read Works” in March 2009, responses
Young Talk and 90% had read like those below have led STF to
Straight Talk. Of primary pupils conclude that overall Young Talk
(not all of whom were in P5-7), and Straight Talk remain prized
43% had read Young Talk. The reading by communities and are
average number of issues read usually their only print materials on
was 4.5 for both papers. sexuality and HIV.

Since then STF has not “I have seen my students

conducted a survey of benefitting from Straight Talk and
comparable scale. But it did Young Talk since I started teaching,”
return to Kisoro in 2009, said a teacher in Kasese. “Here we
surveying 343 young people are faced with early pregnancies
from 18 schools and 172 and many of our girls drop out.
households. Readership remains Young Talk helps us in making sure
strong: over 80% had “ever” the younger ones understand. Both
read Straight Talk; over 70% had Straight Talk and Young Talk help
“ever” read Young Talk. them know about HIV/AIDS.”
Universal
secondary “Straight Talk and Young Talk help students (on)
Ever read ST or YT:
education covered how to protect against HIV/STDs,” said a teacher
Kisoro district 2009
S1-3 in 2009 and in Bugiri. “Students gain confidence to talk freely
No. Straight Young increased retention
about sex-related issues. They come to know that
Talk Talk of girls. Of students
it is not a crime or evil to talk about it.”
Male 167 88.8% 70.7% who sat O level
exams in 2009,
Female 176 94.5% 75.6% 53% were boys. But
Straight Talk
10-14 112 83.3% 71.6% girls still perform Straight Talk, now in its seventeenth year,
far worse than provides comprehensive HIV and sexuality
15-19 123 94.7% 73.1%
boys on all national education in English for older adolescents and
21-24 108 96.9% 80.0% exams. young people (15-24). Among 15 to 19 year olds,

W hether young
people with HIV
disclose their status
Prevention with positives sexual choices of young positives. Like
all older adolescents, the young people
living with HIV at STF are preoccupied
to sexual partners is with falling in love. All now have boy
critical for the epidemic. or girl friends from within their young
But Nuru says stigma positives support group.
and discrimination make
disclosure a complex and STF is committed to “prevention
difficult process. With with positives”. This means a pro-
casual and unthinking active partnership with positives (not
cruelty, her classmates mere consultation) to increase the
in secondary school confidence of people with HIV, delay
used to call her “insect” disease progression and prevent
and another young disease transmission.
positive “walking coffin”.
Recently one texted her Research from Rakai shows that a
to say: “Nuru, I saw your “change in the risk behaviour of an HIV
column. I am now in the positive person will on average and in
same boat as you!” almost all populations have a much
bigger effect on the spread of HIV than
Her monthly diary the equivalent change in a negative
in Straight Talk is a person” (King Spooner, 1999).
conversation about the

 STF 2009 ANNUAL REPORT

about 22% of girls and 24% of boys were in secondary
school in 2006, the year of the last Demographic
and Health Survey (DHS). STF estimates the reach of
Straight Talk to correlate with these proportions.
The four page A3 newspaper assumes that all its
readers are experiencing sexual feelings and pressures,
but that most of its readers are not having sex,
although an important minority are. Straight Talk also
assumes that most of its readers are not HIV positive
but that an increasing proportion are, having been
born with or acquired the virus.
A proud achievement for Straight Talk in 2009 was its
anonymous “Diary of a Young Positive,” which started
in February. Written by STF’s young positive’s officer,
Nuru Kisitu, 24, the diary chronicled her feelings
about the virus, her relationship with her mother and
boyfriend, the ups and downs of her CD4 count, and
much more. Nuru was born with HIV but did not start
ARVs until she was 20. When she went public in The
New Vision and Straight Talk, she received 362 phone
calls and 178 texts from ten countries. One text read:
“Dear Nuru, we love what you do. Do you know how
many lives you have saved?” Another read: “Nuru, how
do I live positively? I found out 2 weeks ago. I am so
scared. Help me please. Am so cold.” In 2010, Nuru
will respond to young positives who contact her, visit
schools and run support groups at STF youth centres.
Much HIV prevention work is predicated on the
assumption that people have sex for only three
reasons: pleasure, love and/or reproduction. This
under-estimates the complexity of human motivation
and renders much HIV “messaging” less impactful
than it could be. In 2009, two psychology professors,
Cindy Meston and David Buss, from the University
of Texas, published a book--Why women have sex:
sexual motivation from adventure to revenge--that
identified the 237 reasons why women have sex.
Although the authors are distinguished scientists, this
attracted wry attention. “Why 237?” people asked.
However, STF could draw up a possibly even longer
list for adolescents, which might start with boredom,
excitement, loneliness and lack of information. It would
also include desire for status and things, need for food,
to avoid a beating, to see what it feels like, to impress
a friend and to become grown up. To reflect this
multiplicity of motivations for sex, each Straight Talk
provides a carefully crafted buffet or “katogo” (a multi-
ingredient Ugandan dish) in the hope that something
will strike a chord with every reader.
Body, HIV and science subjects covered in Straight Talk
in 2009 included TB, the vagina, circumcision, oral sex,
PEP, septrin, penis shape, STDs, hormones, HIV testing,
emergency contraception, preventing pregnancy, the
sperm cell, pubic hair, condoms, PMTCT, and breasts.
Many of these were captured in a box called “HIV
basics,” which ensures that Straight Talk does not
lose sight of HIV, even when it is talking about school
dilemmas, jobs, or relationships with parents.
Straight Talk also addressed life skills like coping
with sexual advances, managing sexual feelings in
a relationship, spending holidays safely, managing
unfaithful partners, going back to school after
pregnancy, and reasons why girls do not perform better
in school--part of STF’s drip-drip approach to gender.
STF is in conversation with young people and follows a
problem-solving approach. Thus in 2009, Straight Talk
posed 17 questions to readers, almost two per issue.
Some were exercises to get young people thinking
carefully, like a science quiz: How many sperm cells
are in an ejaculation? Describe signs of an STD? Others

Paulo Freire I nfluenced by Brazilian educationalist

Paulo Freire, STF editors try not to
and the visualize readers as empty objects
into which they deposit facts and
problem-solving orthodoxies, i.e. “Having sexual
to them to help them see and
work with the world around them.
Freire called this problem-solving
education. “Those truly committed
to liberation...must replace deposit-

approach feelings? Just abstain! “ making with the posing of problems

In Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970),
Freire called this the banking method of
education. “Instead of communicating,
the teacher makes deposits which the
students patiently receive, memorise
and repeat,” wrote Freire. Knowledge
“becomes a gift bestowed by those who
consider themselves knowledgeable
upon those who they consider to know
nothing.. The teacher talks about reality
as if it were motionless ... Words are
emptied of their concreteness and
become hollow.”
Instead of “banking,” STF is in dialogue
with its readers, posing questions
of human beings...” Problem-solving
education, he said, is based on
“creativity and stimulates true
reflection and action.” Dialogue, he
said, is based on faith and love.
Probably the greatest influence on
communication for social change,
Freire’s ideas liberate STF editors
from the burden of being experts.
Their role, demanding enough, is to
listen intently, be deeply committed
to and interested in young people,
and be sensitive to the ever changing
landscape of HIV, youth and sexuality.

STF 2009 ANNUAL REPORT 

 Combination or highly-active HIV prevention
S TF’s approach of multiple
conversations actualizes of what
is now being called “combination”
transmission...result from a complex
combination of strategies... the effective
mix will vary by transmission dynamics.“
or “highly-active HIV prevention”.
An illustration from an article by Know your epidemic
Coates et al in The Lancet (Aug STF also adheres to the “know your
2008) shows “highly-active HIV epidemic, know your response”
prevention” as underpinned by the approach which looks at where new
domains of behavioural change, infections are occurring and allocates
treatment, biomedical strategies resources where they will make the
and social justice. Every STF biggest difference. Hence its focus in
newspaper attempts to speak to 2009 on most-at-risk and vulnerable
several of these domains. This article populations (fishing communities,
concludes that: “reductions in HIV disability).

were questions to which STF itself is seeking answers.
For example, some ethnic groups in Uganda “pull” to
elongate the labia: it is often done by an older woman
to a girl or in small groups of girls to each other. STF
wanted to know if pulling bears a relationship to
starting sex and HIV transmission.
Other questions drew on dilemmas posed by readers. “I
have a boy lover who cheats on me so much yet I put
all my mind and love on him,” wrote Tereza. “Should
I also cheat or chuck him?” “My friend, Tereza, your
boyfriend deceives you,” answered one girl. “I advise
you to mind your books more than him.” Another
advised: “Tereza, you are still young. If he fails to
change, end the relationship.”
Overall in 2009, Straight Talk featured 130 girls, 139
boys and 50 adult resource people, such as social
workers and doctors. The adolescents came from 62 of
Uganda’s 80 districts: national representation is vital.
or breasts grow, or that going without sex will cause
infertility later in life. Myth-busting conversations about
body changes can help adolescents delay sex for now.
Counselors and doctors answered 60 questions in
Young Talk in 2009. One reader, 13, asked: is sex at
night safe because HIV sleeps? “One young person’s
question can help many others who are in a similar
situation,” says Print Director Topi Agutu. “Answers
must go behind the question. If a child asks if HIV
sleeps at night, is he having sex?”
In 2009 Young Talk focused on handling strong
emotions, talk as a life skill, managing shyness, self-
confidence, how to speak out for help, doing the right
thing, and the value of hard work. Regular “HIV basics”

Young Talk
Young Talk is for younger adolescents aged 10-14 who
are in the first years of puberty. These children should
be in P5-7 but are often in lower classes, especially in
rural areas. P5-7 classes also include adolescents who
are older. This age mixing--the norm across Africa--
creates hurdles for age-appropriate sex education.

Young Talk’s fundamental message about sex is

“not yet”. Early adolescence is “too young” socially,
physiologically and economically for sex, child
bearing and marriage (Dixon-Mueller, 2008). To
support adolescents to delay sexual debut, Young Talk
facilitates multiple “conversations” on the subject.

Many young adolescents are under pressure (or

have already been forced) to start sex and need
conversations around bad touches and protecting their
body, walking in groups, thinking critically about peers
and adults who pressure them, reporting to trusted
adults, avoiding risky scenarios such as being alone
with a male relative, and being wary of gifts. Others
are deeply curious about sex or influenced by myths.
Many believe that sex is necessary to make the penis
“Policy makers often assume that young people aged
10-14 are reliably under the protection of some kind of adult,
ideally their parents,” notes Population Council, 2009. But
in Uganda, only 42% of girls and 46% of boys live with both
parents and 30% of girls and 26% of boys live with neither.
(DHS, 2006).

 STF 2009 ANNUAL REPORT


and science columns covered penile hygiene, pimples,
circumcision, menstrual pain, ARVs, vaginal discharge,
breast size, sharing sharp objects, wet dreams, the
hymen, and where HIV lives in the body.
One of the strongest issues of Young Talk in 2009
was on life in fishing villages. Uganda’s National HIV
and AIDS Strategic Plan 2007-12 lists fishing folk as
a “vulnerable and most at risk population” with HIV
prevalence three times higher than the national 7%.
One girl told Young Talk: “The boys here deceive you
with fish. The first time a boy may give you free fish,
the second time he gives you more free fish, the third
time he asks for sex.”
Boys described how they stay safe. “I fish after school.”
said Odoch, 15, from Arua. “At night I am at home. If
you fish at night, there are women who drink alcohol
and are not ashamed to ask for sex from young boys.”
Girls have fewer safety ploys. A girl from Pingire
landing site, Serere, told Young Talk how she was
raped and made pregnant when her mother sent her to
collect money from a man who frequents her mother’s
drinking joint. “Nothing was done to him,” said the
girl. “He paid my mum to keep quiet.”
Pupils critique a Young Talk. STF pretests every
paper before going to press, a sacrosanct step in BCC.
Says print manager Martha Akello: “You can struggle to
illustrate an article, then the pupils say we do not like that
girl. She has big cheeks. So we have to change that. If we
do not get the faces right, they will not appreciate it.”
Local language Straight Talk
STF’s 2006-10 Strategic Plan committed STF to produce
one Straight Talk in four indigenous languages every
year. In 2009, STF produced five -- in Lwo, Ateso,
Luganda, Runyankole-Rukiga, and Runyoro-Rutoro.
Designed for older out-of-school youth, the papers had
shared core material with region-specific photos and
testimonies.
The theme of the issue was “respect and love as
protection against HIV”. Unpacked, this included
articles on saying no to intimate partner violence,
going with your partner for VCT, antenatal care and
PMTCT, girls not falling for the “lies” of boys, and girls
not seeing boys merely as a source of money. It busted
myths, described condom use step-by-step, and looked
at PEP as well as genital warts.

In 2009, quizzes included “write in and advise”:

Beatrice, whose parents want her to marry
for bride price; Kabuye, whose classmate puts
“her bums” on his legs; Scovia, whose teacher
wants to have sex with her; and Katushabe, who
asked: “if your father refuses to pay your school
fees, can your boyfriend help?” Readers warned
Katushabe that her boyfriend may pay for her but
then make her his wife so she would drop out of
school anyway. They urged her to ask relatives
to plead with her father on her behalf.

Young Talk struggles to be sufficiently “low-lit”

for rural children. Nevertheless, the review of
STF’s 2006-10 Strategic Plan found Young Talk Young adolescents read the Ateso Straight Talk at a village fair
still deeply relevant. “It has helped me to attend in Kabermaido. Although not written for their age group, the paper
school everyday and participate in class,” said will nevertheless answer many of their questions.
a pupil from Bugiri. “I ask my mother about
menstruation when I have a problem.”
STF 2009 ANNUAL REPORT 
 schooling and early marriage,” notes Population Council
(2009). “Age at first birth and overall fertility also vary
by level of education of the female.”

STF launched Teacher Talk in 2002 to give primary

teachers a voice and start conversations about child-
centred teaching, ASRH, and how teachers can manage
their own sexuality, as teachers are a high risk group
for HIV. Teacher Talk is STF’s most “official” paper,
produced with the Ministry of Education and Sports. In
2009, STF produced four issues of Teacher Talk.

The first Teacher Talk emphasised the teachers’ code

of conduct with articles on being a role model as well
as teaching in mother tongue. The second focused on
preventing school drop out. It covered making schools
safe for children, managing when UPE funds come late,
giving pupils access to text books, and encouraging
Kitgum, September 2009: Secondary parents to send their children to school with food, as
school teachers co-edit a Teacher Talk.
there are no government meals. After reading it, a
teacher in Arua said: “I learnt that telling big boys and
girls that they should get married leads to school drop
Teacher Talk out. Instead we should use motivating language.”
Teachers are Uganda’s largest group of civil servants.
In primary schools, they can manage classes of up to The third Teacher Talk focused on alternatives to
120 pupils. Most primary teachers earn about US$100 corporal punishment; caning is banned but common.
a month, head teachers about $200. Morale is low: It looked at “not letting anger be your identity” and
teachers are distracted by looking for other incomes to “what is wrong with beating pupils”. The fourth, for
educate their own children. On any day, 20-30% are post-primary institutions, focused on HIV. “Do not look
absent. at children with HIV as a burden,” wrote counselor
Goretti Nakabugo. “If you have HIV, consider yourself a
Although Universal resource who can pass the message to your students.”
Primary Education (UPE),
started in 1997 and has
increased enrolment, only
48% of children who start Special projects
P1 complete the seven As in previous years, STF
primary years. In districts produced print materials for other
such as Katakwi, just 18% organisations, including:
of boys and 11% of girls • Everyday Health Matters for
get through. These bleak AFFORD/USAID. July: Preventing
figures, not anticipated at the sexual transmission of HIV.
outset of UPE, spell gloom English, Luganda and 4Rs.
for SRH. “There are strong • Scouts Voice for Path-Kenya/
correlations between limited USAID. July “My changing body”;
Dec/Jan “Violence and HIV”.
• Dongo Paco, see p43
Words on a tree • HIPS/USAID: brochures , posters.

S TF’s “conversation”
has been multiplied
thousands of times in
“talking compounds” at
schools. Its calendars are
up years after they were
published. Still on the wall
at Arapai Agricultural
College in 2009 was the
1996 calendar: “ Safer
sex is respect” and
“Assertiveness in a life
skill”.

10 STF 2009 ANNUAL REPORT

Letters to STF print
L ike all young
people at STF,
Denis Pato, 24,
recalls the exact
date he joined:
31 January 2008.
He takes home
UGX 200,000 a
month ($112),
with which he
pays his university
fees and supports
his parents and
brothers. His
mother is disabled from falling on burning charcoal
during epileptic fits.

Denis chooses letters to run in STF papers and also

logs and answers them. In 2009, Denis and his
colleagues answered about half of the 11,570 sent to
Young and Straight Talk. Over the 2009 Christmas
break, 15 STF staff worked overtime to clear 1427
questions, with senior STF editor Gilbert Awekofua
checking answers for quality. “The problem is
manpower,” says Denis.

“The easy letters are the ones on body changes,”

says Denis. “A girl will write: ‘I’m 16 and haven’t
started my periods.’ That’s easy. You tell her: ‘It’s
normal. They will come.’ What’s harder is when
someone is really in a problem and is trusting you
for an immediate response. We had a girl who wrote
that she was pregnant. If her parents found out, they
would send her away. We called her at her school,
and she said she was OK but in her tone we could
hear a lie. We do not know what happened. We have
others who say a teacher is defiling them. Those we
answer urgently. We tell them to stay away from that
person, rush to a trusted adult, and maybe get PEP.”

In 2009 letters to Young Talk tripled to 8040,

while letters to Straight Talk declined to 3530.
Girls write more than boys (63% of letters
Dear Young Talk,
to Straight Talk; 60% to Young Talk). To its
My friend told me tha
five “Talk” newspapers, STF received almost t she has a vaginal dis
causes pain, yet she charge, which
13,000 letters in 2009. has never had sex.
problem? What could be her
My aunt told me not
to throw used pads
not to hang my knicke in the latrine and
Newspaper Letters received rs in the sun. She say
s I may not
produce children. Is
it true?
Young Talk 8,040 Somebody told me tha
t if a girl doesn’t hav
vagina will close. Is e sex, her
Straight Talk 3,530 it true?
Why don’t girls exper Letters to
ience wet dreams?
Teacher Talk 260 What happens when STF rarely
you are in love with
Is it true that if you a relative?
Farm Talk 900 use a female condom
you may die
contain just
because it may enter
your uterus? one question.
Tree Talk 80 Can I lose my virgin
ity by being circumcis This letter,
ed?
Total 12,810 quite typical,
Anjella Teko, 15, P6
contains seven,
Moroto Municipal Co
uncil Primary School all intricate.

STF 2009 ANNUAL REPORT 11

 Distribution
Topi: keeping STF print fresh
I
n 2009, two STF staff and

S TF’s Director of Print, 25 bundlers dispatched over

Teopista Agutu, has edited ten million papers to 25,650
STF papers since 1998. She destinations, 68% of which are
has worked with two sexual schools. The team also added
generations: there is a new 2,000 addresses to the STF
sexual generation every five database and physically checked
years. on distribution in 13 districts.

Young people have the same Distribution officer Gladys

worries today as they had 11 Nayanga has a warm relationship
years ago, says Topi. “There are with adults who control access to
always new children who have STF papers. “We thank DEOs and
just grown into adolescents. postmasters for ensuring students
They are mostly in villages with get their copies.”
elders who believe myths about
body changes. They have to ask Gladys blasts SMS texts to
their own questions.” teachers after she posts the
papers each month. “The
Says the mother of two with messages help a lot,” says Hoima
a masters in public health post master, Jonathan Balibeira.
leadership: “As an editor, you “When teachers receive them,
think: ‘We have just addressed they flood here demanding for
that.’ But you have to talk their parcels, even when we are
about it again. The challenge still sorting them out.”
is keeping it fresh and looking
for new angles, “like illustrating
something differently or turning STF Mailing List 2009
it into a puzzle.”
readers. “We reflect on their Category No.
Topi’s team started writing about letters and look at documents Primary Schools 14,234
PEP in 2008. Under government like the National HIV and AIDS Secondary School 3,320
policy, PEP is free for anyone Strategic Plan, and we line those
Straight Talk Clubs 810
who has been raped, although together. We also ask ourselves
what are those new things in Young Talk Clubs 128
this is not widely known. But
introducing PEP meant that HIV prevention. We started a Tertiary Institutions 552
readers again question the conversation with our readers on CCTs / Teacher Colleges 578
nature of HIV. Says Topi: “It was medical male circumcision even
District Education 80
baffling for them. before the Ministry of Health
Offices
We had to explain came out with a
policy.” District Inspector Offices 80
that although
PEP can prevent Health Centres 1,783
infection, it is In 2009 STF NGOs 484
not a cure if you introduced a
CBOs 1,602
already have HIV. quality check list.
Says Topi: “You Baptist Churches 74
We had to go
over the science check as the paper Catholic Churches 118
of HIV again and is put together. Church of Uganda 803
say simply that If something is
Islamic Institutions 45
PEP stops the missing, you throw
it back to the Police 120
virus from taking
root.” journalists. You can Prisons 57
say: ‘You’ve talked to Libraries 35
Topi makes sure only girls. What about
MPs 306
that Straight boys?’ Or we look
and say: the ‘buffet’ is International addresses 266
Talk and Young
Talk meet not complete. It is too Farm Talk Institutions 175
the needs of much on science. What TOTAL 25,650
about feelings?”

12 STF 2009 ANNUAL REPORT

Talking Points
S
TF reports to its main funding
body, the Civil Society Fund
(CSF), on people reached with
ABC messages (Abstain, Be Faithful
or Use Condoms). In 2009, the Civil
Society Fund went further and
challenged STF, asking: “How do you
know that you have done ‘A’? What is
your complete ‘A’?”
STF’s reaction was: “Well, we can talk
forever about abstinence. First, we say
that the hymen does not become hard
like cow hide if you don’t have sex...”
On reflection, however, STF
felt this question was fair.
What is the minimum that
a young person needs to
absorb about “A”, “B” or “C”?
How does STF know what it
leaves behind in the hearts
of adolescents? What if STF
devotes an entire school
visit to alcohol and neglects
handling sexual feelings
or condoms? Faced with
students firing questions, it
is easy to slip off message.
In 2009, STF thus
developed Talking Points,
boiled-down distillations of
what STF would like young
people to retain. These
A4 sheets (English on one
side and one of 14 local
languages on the other)
start with “A” messages.
Point 7 and 8 introduce “B”
and “C”.
ABC has weaknesses:
it neglects people who
already have HIV or are
forced into sex. STF Talking
Points counter this with
points for positive youth
and on PEP.
They go beyond ABC to
HCT, couple dialogue,
violence, alcohol, the
right time to start sex,
and the purpose of a girl
or boyfriend. They try to
capture what good sex and
a good life might be.
Staff now speak from and
leave Talking Points behind
in the field.
Talking Points
Sex is a natural part of life. But what you do sexually as a
6, young person will lead you to either a better life or a life of
36
PO Box 22 la
Kampa suffering. Think critically about sex and the life you want.
1 Sexual feelings are natural. But they
cannot control you. You can control them
by making your mind busy with work or
2 ENJOY LIFE. Nothing bad will happen if you do not have
sex. Your breasts, penis, hips and all other parts will grow.
You will have GOOD sex later in life. You will enjoy your
games. You do not need sex. married life and produce children.
3 4
Wet dreams and Wanting to be near the
erections are part of opposite sex is part of
being a boy -- not signs growing up. Girls, do
to start sex. Try not to be not get overwhelmed
embarrassed about them. by the sweet words of
Menstruation is part of boys. Enjoy the words,
being a girl -- not a sign but say NO and walk
to start sex. Sex does not away. Boys can also
cure menstrual pain. Sex say NO to girls. Avoid
during menstruation is
unhealthy, and you can
get pregnant.
being alone with a boy
or a girl who you have
feelings for.
5 Sex while you are
still at school is
BAD sex, whatever
your age. You
cannot concentrate
6 7
Sex when you or your partner Boys, sex when you are out of school is on your books.
are aged less than 18 is also COMPLICATED, even if you are over 18. Students and
BAD. It often leads to prison for Relationships involve money so you will pupils who start
the boy and early pregnancy for not develop economically. If you have sex at school rarely
the girl. This can bring death, a girl, have a serious one,who does not complete their
abortion, school drop out, have other partners or want a lot of studies or achieve
forced marriage. material things. Use condoms. their goals..
8 Girls, do not rush into sex or marriage, even if your parents are poor or put
pressure on you. Take your time and earn your own income. Boys and men
who give you money will want sex. If you have a boyfriend, have a serious one, 11 Many adolescents
have HIV: they
also want love
who listens to your ideas, is not violent, does not have other partners and
and sex. Never
does not get drunk. Use condoms correctly everytime.
stigmatise people
with HIV. They are
9 10
Manage your Before humans too! And
strong emotions. starting any stigmatising them
Talking honestly relationship, may make them
with your partner test together hide their infection
is the best for HIV. If you and infect others.
answer for issues If you have HIV, it is
that appear
both test
negative, do EHVWWRÀQGDQRWKHU
complicated. If a not get excited young positive for
relationship fails, and have marriage so you
do not get violent unprotected can share your HIV
or have sex for sex. Always challenges.
revenge or heap use condoms
blame on yourself.
12
to prevent
<RXZLOOÀQG Any girl who is raped
pregnancy until
RUGHÀOHGVKRXOG
someone special. you want a baby.
rush within 72 hours
to a health centre
GOOD sex is sex with one serious partner who for emergency
only has sex with you. It is after age 18, after contraception and
leaving school, when you are ready economically. PEP, the medicine to
Good sex does not transmit disease. You are not protect them from HIV
forced or ashamed. GOOD sex helps you have an infection. Boys can
respectable and happy life. also get PEP.
October 2009 English
STF 2009 ANNUAL REPORT 13
 Straight Talk at a glance 2009

Straight Talk is for youth aged 15-

24 in secondary school and English
readers out of school. In 2009, STF
sent Straight Talk to 3,108 secondary
schools, 1,980 CBO/NGOs, 1,783
health centres and 1,910 churches
and mosques.
The local language paper is for
out-of-school youth who are less
comfortable with English; it was
produced in five local-languages in
2009. At right is the version in the
language Runyankole-Rukiga.

14 STF 2009 ANNUAL REPORT

Young Talk at a glance 2009

Young Talk is for adolescents in the

three upper classes of primary school.
About 90% of 10 to 14 year olds are in
primary school. In 2009 STF sent Young
Talk to 13,111 primary schools, 1,987
CBO/NGOs, 1,782 health centres and
1,039 churches and mosques.

Early adolescence is particularly risky

for boys. They are more likely to start
sex before age 15 and to be infected in
early adolescence than girls (DHS, 2006;
UHSBS, 2004-5).

STF 2009 ANNUAL REPORT 15

 Forester Joseph Otim (in black)
in the Tree Talk nursery at Paloga
PS, Kitgum. The nursery has
36 beds, each holding about
8000 seedlings. Packing pots
and pricking seedlings requires
dozens of labourers (insert).

Tree Talk planted 20 species in

2009: hardwoods, trees for poles
and firewood, ornamentals, and
multi-purpose trees. Most were
indigenous to Uganda.

Seedlings raised in 2009 by species

Species Number %
Teak 6867 1.4
Neem 31811 6.5
Gmelina 21681 4.4
Melia 5877 1.2
Musizi 136.0 0.03
Orange/lemon 2111.0 0.43
Mahogany 48105 9.8
Senna 81193 16.6
Balinites 229.0 0.05
Jack fruit 737.0 0.15
Markhamia 201183 41
Albizia 37738 7.7
Jambula 9510 1.90
Shea 20.0 0.004
Delonix 1791.0 0.37
Afzelia 3355 0.68
Eucalyptus 19383 4.0
Tamarindus 4260 0.87
Mvule 6989 1.43
Mango 680.0 0.14
Total 490,425 100

Tree Talk &

Trees/acres planted in 2009 by district
District Trees Acres
Adjumani 171,312 367
Amuru 201,748 432.2
Kitgum 169,314 362.7

Farm Talk
Moyo 88,800 190.4
Gulu 43,377 132
Yumbe 71,139 152.4
Total 745,690 1636.6

16 STF 2009 ANNUAL REPORT

 The Adjumani Tree
Talk nursery. Inserts: pupil
with a Markhamia lutea
seedling; Simon Peter and
Otim on air in Kitgum.
Tree Talk
T
ree Talk is both a newspaper and a tree growing
drive. Although people sometimes ask: “What’s
the link with adolescents and HIV?” – Tree Talk
fits perfectly into STF, and the links are endless.
To mention just a few: without trees, there is no fuel,
yet meals and clean boiled water are vital for pupils on
ARVs. Loss of tree cover means girls walk further for
firewood and are more vulnerable to rape. As poverty
worsens, girls marry earlier, usually to older men who
are more likely to have HIV.
Rural Ugandans make these links with ease. In
2009 Tree Talk hosted 40 radio talk shows. “When
we talked about forest degradation,” says Tree Talk
manager Simon Peter Amunau, “listeners called in and
said people should use family planning to reduce on
producing many children.”
Tree Talk started as a newspaper in 2002. Even before
climate change topped the world’s agenda, Uganda
needed to focus on trees. Over 76% of wood used is for
charcoal, the balance for poles and timber: 70% of the
506 central forest reserves are at risk of destruction.
The country loses 80,000 hectares of forest a year;
92% of households depend on biomass for energy.
With a format like Straight Talk–four pages, A3,
newsprint–Tree Talk is sent to all educational
institutions and many CBOs throughout Uganda.
The extra twist is that each package of newspapers
contains a sachet of tree seed. In 2009 STF produced
one national issue on the charcoal crisis and solutions:
more efficient charcoal production and stoves,
replanting after cutting. The paper was distributed
with seed for the tropical hardwoods Mvule or Afezelia
africana. The latter is on the IUCN endangered list.
In addition, STF produced Tree Talk issues for northern
Uganda in Lwo and English. As people return to their
homes from IDP camps, what happens to trees will
partly determine the fertility of the region. Men are
charcoaling trees for a fast though meager income and
burning large swathes of land to drive out game for
bush meat.
In 2009, Tree Talk was funded by WILD (Wildlife,
Landscapes, and Conservation for Development), a
USAID project managed by Wildlife Conservation
Society. Tree Talk’s role is to grow trees in a buffer
zone of 40 km around areas of great biodiversity in
the central north and along the Uganda-Sudan border:
Agoro Agu in Kitgum, Mt Otzi in Moyo, Murchison Falls
National Park in Amuru, and East Madi Wildlife Reserve
and Zoka Central Forest Reserve in Adjumani.
In 2009 Tree Talk supported the planting of an
estimated 745,000 trees, about 490,000 of which
were raised in the five Tree Talk central nurseries,
the balance in 40 community nurseries. “The major
objective of reducing biodiversity loss may not be seen
now,” says Simon Peter. “But these are initial steps
towards that long term objective.”
Already visible, however, are woodlots at schools
that Tree Talk supported in years past. At Lokung PS
in Kitgum, the 3 acre “Tree Talk” woodlot, planted in
2006 with World Food Programme, now has a closed
canopy under which teachers hold lessons. At Koro P7
PS in Gulu, the administration raised salaries for three
STF 2009 ANNUAL REPORT 17
teachers not on the payroll by selling part of the 2006
Tree Talk woodlot. They also made office furniture.
Thus trees planted under Tree Talk are already taking
some pressure off the bush. Avoided deforestation is
the best way to reduce carbon emissions in Uganda,
and Tree Talk directly supports communities to do this.
Run by young foresters, Tree Talk’s nurseries are the
largest in the north. In 2009, they raised trees for 350
schools, planting a total of 1,600 acres. Woodlot trees–
mostly Senna, Markhamia, Gmelina and Neem–are
planted at 3 by 3 metres, 466 per acre. Hardwoods are
planted on school boundaries at a spacing of 10 metres.
The 40 community groups planted their trees on private
or common land. Although they will require ground-
truthing, reported results look positive. In Adjumani,
Mudruagwagwa community group raised over 40,000
trees and Ojjigo community nursery 30,000. Ojjigo
planted 10,000 and sold the balance for UGX 1 million.
If the best community nurseries become commercial,
this will be an achievement.
Tree Talk trained 683 teachers in 2009. Unexpectedly,
prisons emerged as powerful tree-growing institutions
after wardens attended trainings in Adjumani and
Kitgum. In Adjumani, Openzizi (with 5,000 almost
entirely unutilized acres) and the
local government prison raised about
50,000 seedlings in 2009. If these
are eventually used for firewood,
this will protect the bush: Openzizi
consumes four lorries of fuel wood a
month.
Women with their community nursery in Adjumani.
In addition, Tree Talk donated 15,000 mahoganies and
Albezia to replant a degraded forest that once protected
a water catchment in Koro, Gulu. “The springs had run
dry and the fish pond was gone,” says Simon. This
was probably an over-donation. By the time the rains
stopped, the community had planted just 3000. But the
community’s clarity on the connection between the loss
of trees and water was heartening. “Awareness has
gone high,” says Simon. “People are responding. They
can even steal seedlings. Though stealing is bad it is
linked to the benefits they perceive to come from trees.
People may not know the meaning of ‘climate change’
but they know they are feeling the effects. They say:
‘We used to get rains from late February to May but last
year that season was missed. Even our famous Aswa
river was only stones’.”
Cost per tree planted and tree surviving are crucial
figures for a world hoping to capture carbon through
reforestation. In previous years, Tree Talk estimated
that costs were about US$0.60 per tree planted and a
little higher per tree surviving to one year. But these
costs were raised by intermittent funding, which
meant that Tree Talk had to keep establishing new
nurseries. With consistent funding from WILD, Tree

Besides meeting the WILD planting

targets, Tree Talk nurseries sold
12,000 trees to NUTI, a USAID
project, and 7,000 Mvule, mahogany
and Albezia to the Farm Income
Enhancement and Forestry
Conservation Project. Earnings
were ploughed back into the
nurseries. Raising trees for others is a
sustainability strategy.

18 STF 2009 ANNUAL REPORT

Talk nurseries have steadily on only 6.3%, 1% and 6.8%
produced seedlings since 2007, of parcels of land respectively.
leading to a drop in cost per (Uganda National Household
tree. In 2009 Tree Talk received Survey, 2006) In 2002, STF
UGX 289 million (US$148,000) launched Farm Talk to galvanize
from WILD. This works out at agriculture in schools and make
UGX 387 or US$0.20 each for working in the school garden a
745,000 trees. If 65% survive learning experience rather than
to one year, the cost is UGX 596 a punishment for pupils.
each or US$0.30.
In 2009, funded by Danida,
At the end of 2009, STF STF produced three issues of
received marvelous news. As Farm Talk . With each issue,
Farm Talk encourages school farmer each school receive a 5g sachet
the Copenhagen Summit closed,
clubs and promotes school gardens as living
Danida in Kampala granted Tree of seed (eggplant, cabbage or
labs for learning.
Talk US$1 million over three Amaranth). In its on-the-ground
years. Tree Talk finally seemed component, Farm Talk worked
an idea whose time had come. with 51 schools and three CBOs
The new grant commits STF to to create model school gardens.
grow four million trees. STF is Forty of these each received
aiming for twice that number a package worth UGX137,000
and hopes to also attract carbon (US$70) of seeds, hoes, pangas,
funds for schools. slashers, rakes and watering
cans. Farm Talk also trained 85
Farm Talk teachers (22 female) in backyard

A
griculture is also gardening and how to make
intricately linked with sack mounds, nursery beds and
adolescent well-being and liquid manure. Visited once a
HIV. Over 70% of youth will end term, schools had impressive
up relying on farming; 66% of results: small productive school
the male and 81% of the female gardens and innovations such as
working population is engaged kitchen gardens around baskets
in agriculture. Of these, 42% of household peelings.
live below the poverty line, so
improving agriculture would “They used their gardens
“directly reduce mass poverty.” for teaching and the harvest
(Uganda Human Development Report, 2007). to help school feeding,” says Farm Talk ’s Robert
Muwawu. “Mwanyangiri PS in Mukono harvested so
Unfortunately, agriculture receives less than 5% of both much Amaranthus seed that they ground it for pupils’
the government budget and donor allocations. Food porridge.”
production is not keeping up with population growth.
Food crops are becoming cash crops and increasingly Farm Talk will continue in 2010 with a focus on
controlled by men, further threatening food security. gender: 70% of all crops make their way to market on
Improved seeds, fertilizers and manure are applied the heads of women.

TALK
M a k i n g a g r i c u l t u r e r e w a r d i n g a n d f u n f o r p u p i l s & t e a c h e r s V o l . 10 No.1 August 2009

Together we can save energy for improved lives and a better environment

Energy is life Get your packet of cabbage

seeds with this Farm Talk.

Use it well
Energy is the ability to do work. To
cook food we need fire. Fire is a form
of energy. At night we need light
to see. Light is also energy. We use
paraffin lamps, candles or electric
bulbs in our homes and schools.

Factories use energy

to produce things that
we use everyday like
sugar, soap, books
and matches. Grinding
mills also use energy.
Energy for cooking
and lighting costs
money. We also
spend time and our own energy from
the food we eat to collect firewood.
Today many people only get enough
fireood or charcoal to cook one meal
a day. Do not wait for this to happen
to your family. Use energy well. Do
saving
not waste it. Energy- es save
l stov
Energy crisis charcoa money and
l,
charcoa ment.
the environmore
According to the Ministry of Energy
and Mineral Development, about
They cost save
97% of Ugandans use firewood and
ally but you
charcoal to cook. But when we cut initi using less
trees for firewood in the village or daily by l.
cook on charcoal in town, we are charcoa
reducing our woodlands. This disrupts
the rain cycle and causes soil erosion.
firewood from the trees you plant. John Kuteesakwe of the Energy “We use a lot of firewood cooking
Our country could become a desert.
Your family will save money and help Advisory Project in the Minstry of on ours," says Kibirige H, 13, P6,
Yet we need energy to eat. So what
to stop forests from being destroyed. Energy, says: “A person who used St Kizito PS, Wakiso. "We have to
should we do?
Planting trees for firewood also saves to walk one kilometer to collect keep on blowing the flames. It
children and women from walking firewood eight years ago, produces a lot of smoke.
Grow trees Our neighbours with
long distances to collect firewood today moves 12
Farm Talkers, take the lead to plant
from bushy places. kilometers." This energy-saving
trees at home and school. Use
is a sign of our stoves cook faster
energy crisis but than us.”
it also exposes
females to rape. To save
firewood and
A girl, 17, in charcoal:
Kakoma, Bushenyi, • Use energy-saving stoves
told Farm Talk: "I had gone very and well- dried firewood split into
far to look for wood when a man with thin pieces. • Cover the saucepan
a panga raped me.” Girls also miss while cooking. • Cut food into
school because they collect firewood. smaller pieces and soak dry foods
Growing trees around like peas and beans
your home and school before cooking. • Avoid
can solve many of over-filling saucepans
these problems. with wate. •
Prepare the food to
Save firewood be cooked before
& charcoal lighting the stove.
The traditional 3-stone Put the fire out once
Young Farmers of St Elizabeth PS, Kyamaganda, you finish cooking.
fire place is wasteful.
Masaka weed their green pepper garden plot.

STF 2009 ANNUAL REPORT 19

 At 20, Juliet Kabahaguzi is STF’s second
youngest radio journalist. She runs the
youth show in Runyoro-Rutoro. One of 11
children, Juliet had to leave school after
S4 (tenth grade). Her father died of AIDS
in July 2009. “When STF called me for an
interview, I was at his burial,” says Juliet.
She started work at STF in August.

“Juliet is going through all the things

other adolescents are going through,”
says radio director Annette Kyosiimire.
“She does wonderful interviews.”

Radio
In this photo, Juliet is interviewing a
secondary student in Kisaalizi SS, Kibaale.
“I asked him how he became lame,”
explains Juliet. “He said that war delayed
him to be immunised against polio. He
told me he has sexual feelings but wants
to be circumcised first because it protects
60%. He has a girlfriend who is not lame.”

STF broadcast 5,096 radio shows in 2009.

20 STF 2009 ANNUAL REPORT
 languages for adults, a vital part of the STF package for
communities.

STF shows were broadcast on 50 stations in 2009.

Depending on the size of the linguistic region, shows
are usually broadcast on more than one station.
Shows for the large languages like Luganda, Lwo and
Runyankole/Rukiga are played on six stations each.
English, understood nationwide by young people with
secondary education, is played on 16.

In 2009, therefore, each week STF produced 17

different radio shows for youth which were broadcast
a total of 71 times each week. It also produced nine
shows a week for parents which were broadcast a total
of 27 times each week. STF thus broadcast 3,692 youth
shows and 1,404 parent shows, for a grand total of
5,096 shows in 2009, up from 4,160 in 2008.

Although STF bargains hard for good prices, over 80%

Boys become vulnerable to HIV later than girls. Boys
are protected by longer schooling and a later age of first
sex -- estimated at 18.3 for boys and 16.7 for girls (DHS,
2006). By age 18-19, just 0.2% of boys have HIV compared
to 3.9% of girls (UHSBS, 2004-5).
of its radio spend goes to airtime. Shows range in
price from UGX100,000 on small stations like Better FM
in Fort Portal to UGX 500,000 for ones with multiple
transmitters like Capital FM. Radio stations are STF
allies, acting as drop points for listeners’ letters. In

R
adio is STF’s largest communication stream Language Launch B/casts
with 26 journalists, a studio technician,
Radio shows for adolescents/youth
a letters coordinator and two managers.
English Straight Talk 1999 17
Without salaries, Radio accounts for 21% of STF’s
expenditure budget, about UGX 1.559 billion or Lwo: Lok atyer kamaleng 2000 5
US$796,592 a year, almost twice as much as print Runyankore/Rukiga: Tusheeshuure 2001 6
(12%). Ateso: Einer Eitena 2002 3
Lugbara: Eyo eceza tra ri 2003 3
STF is committed to reaching the majority of
Lusamia: Embaha Ngololofu 2003 2
adolescents. Because Uganda is 87% rural and
Lumasaba: Khukanikha Lubuula 2004 2
does not have a national language, these are
young people who live in scattered homesteads Luganda: Twogere Kaati 2004 5
and conduct their lives in their mother tongue. Lukonzo: Erikania Okwenene 2004 2
Uganda’s Constitution recognizes 56 languages; Lusoga: Twogere Lwattu 2005 5
the National Curriculum Development Centre 23 Kupsabiny: Ngalatep Maanta 2005 3
with an orthography and dictionary. Only radio
Karimojong: Erwor Ngolo Ediiriana 2006 4
can cost-effectively reach such a dispersed and
Lufumbira: Tuvuge Rwatu 2007 2
multilingual population.
Runyoro/Rutooro: Baza busimba 2008 4
STF has broadcast shows for young people since Madi Ta’joka gbo 2009 1
1999. Its 2006-10 Strategic Plan committed it to Lebthur Twak natir both lwak 2009 1
reaching 15 languages by 2010. STF surpassed Pokot Ngal cho momi kewiny 2009 2
this in 2009, launching three new shows to reach
Sub-total/wk 17 shows 71/wk
17 languages up from 14 in 2008. The three new
Radio shows for parents
languages represent remote, underserved areas.
Madi is a tonal language spoken by about 400,000 4Rs: Eriaka Ryomuzaire 2005 5
people along the Nile as it enters Sudan. Lebthur Lugbara: Nzeta Tipikaniri 2005 3
is spoken by about 80,000 people who reside Lukonzo: Omukania owa’ babuthi 2005 3
in Abim district squeezed between the Luo and Lusamia: Embaha ya bebusi 2005 2
Karimojong. Pokot is spoken by about 80,000
Lumasaba: Inganikha iyi basaali 2006 2
people along the Kenya border.
Luganda: Eddobozi lya muzadde 2006 2

STF started broadcasting for parents in 2005 to Lwo: Lok pa Lanyodo 2006 4
support them as “super protectors” of adolescents Ateso: Einer Aurian 2007 2
and to help them think critically about their Karimojong: Erwor Angi Kaureak 2008 4
own sexual lives. HIV discordance in marriage Sub-total/wk 9 shows 27
is high, with 43% of new infections occurring
TOTAL 26 shows 98/wk
in settled couples. Today STF broadcasts in nine
STF 2009 ANNUAL REPORT 21
Field visits/people reached in focus group 4,637 letters and SMS texts from parents.
discussions and in-depth interviews in 2009
Each radio journalist goes to the field four times a
Straight Talk show Districts Villages People People
(by language) visited visited (IDIs) (FGDs) year to collect material for 13 shows on each trip.
Lukonzo 2 37 208 4194 A logbook developed in 2009 allowed STF to check
exactly how many people each journalist interacted
Ngakarimojong 4 29 127 1764
with, where and what transpired. In 2009, STF’s youth
Luganda 11 21 145 1591
radio journalists worked in 483 villages in 78 out of 80
Runyankole-Rukiga 9 39 172 4110 districts. Its Parent Talk journalists covered 251 villages
Lusoga 7 39 159 2837 in 47 districts.
Urufumbira 1 36 160 1812
Ateso 7 15 73 406 Although radio is a mass media, the process of
collecting material for shows is intensely interpersonal.
Lugbara 4 35 188 2090
In 2009, journalists for the youth shows conducted
Lumasaba 4 40 190 3689
one-on-one interviews with 2,663 people and focus
Lusamia 2 48 224 1645 groups with over 50,000. Journalists for the parent
Kupsabiny 2 29 154 1317 shows interviewed 1,572 people and met about 7,000
Lwo 9 38 172 2934 in FGDs.
English 9 20 156 13160
Radio journalists are expected to conduct condom
Runyoro-Rutoro 5 38 182 5354
demonstrations and give out copies of STF papers,
Madi 2 31 144 1284
Talking Points and prizes such as seeds.
Lebthur 1 9 109 701
Pokot 1 10 100 1532 Feedback to shows
TOTAL: 78 483 2663 50470 STF examines the letters received per show every
17 languages quarter. If there is a decline, the radio team dives in
Parent Talk show Districts Villages People People deep. Has the journalist lost steam? Has a station lost
(by language) Visited Visited (IDIs) (FGDs) power and is only broadcasting to a two km radius?
Lukonzo 2 36 208 1171
Ngakarimojong 4 29 101 769 From 1999 to 2006, over 70% of all letter writers
Luganda 7 29 156 976
were male. From 2007, STF made a strenuous effort
to be more girl-relevant. This greatly increased girls’
Runyankole-Rukiga 9 36 167 1248
participation: in 2009, just 52% of letters were from
Ateso 8 19 184 384 boys and, for the first time, letters from girls to several
Lugbara 3 25 127 368 shows surpassed letters from boys. This reflects good
Lumasaba 4 26 167 1280 programming on the part of STF as well as Uganda’s
Lusamia 2 31 219 808 push to enrol and retain more girls in school. But
Lwo 8 20 243 965
it also reflects another changed demographic: letter
writers are increasingly from secondary schools. This is
TOTAL: 47 251 1573 6993
9 languages a deep worry as local language radio shows are STF’s
key intervention for the out-of-school. STF radio teams
may be over-interviewing in schools, so 2010 will
2009, stations gave STF 20 free live shows and 312 see a major push to re-orient the shows to the out-of-
free broadcasts of pre-recorded shows, at a value of
UGX 62,400,000.

“Tried and true” format

All STF shows are pre-recorded and a half hour in
length, a mix of interviews and narrations. Each show
plays three songs and six to eight sweepers. All end
with a quiz question, which runs for two months: the
third month is for announcing winners. Every show
answers three listeners’ questions, unless it is a “doctor
show”, which answers eight. Each show must mention
20 people and have an adult resource person as “back
up”.
STF’s youngest radio journalist, Doreen Muhumure,
These rules create dense, rich radio shows, and 20, interviews a student at Kagongo School of Midwifery
this time-tested format has brought in hundreds of for the Runyankole-Rukiga youth show. In 2009, STF
thousands of letters from listeners since 1999. In 2009, radio journalists interviewed and broadcast the advice
it brought in a record 38,980 letters from youth and and reflections of 307 health workers, 165 elders, 181
counselors and 148 teachers.

22 STF 2009 ANNUAL REPORT

 “Ever listened” to an STF radio show
Social group Ever
listened
Population Council data 2005-6 n=2013
Adolescent males n=1070 60%
Adolescent females n=1067 50%
In-school adolescents n=1700 57%
Out-of-school adolescents n=279 52%
Primary pupils n=1350 51%
Secondary students n=348 82%
Parents (listening to youth show) 40%
Population Council data 2005-6 by district
Adolescents Apac n=367 64.5%
Adolescents Arua n=351 84.3%
Committed to condoms: Sylvia Atuhaire (R), Adolescents Kamuli (English show) n=351 13%
4Rs Parent Talk journalist in 2009, helps with a condom Adolescents Kisoro (English show) n=366 13%
demonstration. The students pay rapt attention. In 2009 the
STF radio team did over 500 demonstrations. Adolescents Ntungamo n=351 75.1%
Adolescents Soroti n=351 80%
school, without losing the girls. Karamoja data 2009
Adolescents to ST show Moroto/Nak n=309 72.3%
Most adolescents write to the youth shows to answer
the “quiz”. To “Imagine you went together for an HIV Parents to PT show Moroto/Nak n=120 80%
test and your partner was positive. What would you Kisoro data 2009
do?”, Stella of Moyo wrote: “Love is sweet and sex is Adolescents 10-14 n=144 86%
delicious but life is precious. We would get counseling
Adolescents 15-19 n=123 87%
and stay together but without sex.”
Youth (20-24) n=108 93%
To “What have you done that could have exposed you In-school n=181 90%
to HIV?”, Fred of Lira Youth ST Club wrote: “I would Out-of-school n=162 88%
drink alcohol, smoke marijuana and have sexual Male n=167 87%
intercourse on a competition basis.” KK, 20, wrote:
Female n=176 90%
“My brother’s wife asked me what was I doing at my
age without a girlfriend. We had sex. I am scared to Parents listening to Parent Talk 2009
test for HIV.” Kumi n=51 94%
Masaka n=51 51%
To the third, about a girl whose ex-boyfriend wants
Gulu n=51 51%
sex, Juliet from Yumbe SS wrote: “Good sex is with the
right person in the right place at the right time. If he Mbale/Siroko n=176 71%
insists on his demand, terminate the relationship for Arua n=118 79.5%
purposes of safety and to prevent you from having a Ntungamo n=115 70.6%
divided mind at school.” To a boy with four girlfriends,
Apac n=126 88.3%
Aisha of Iganga wrote: “He can get infected. It is also
funny to have four girls. He should stick to one. The
girls might fight or pour acid on him.”
70%. STF also measured listenership to some of the
Parent Talk radio shows. Over 90% of parents had “ever
Letters to the Parent Talk radio show can be poignant.
listened” in Kumi, about 50% in Gulu and Masaka, 75%
One to the Lusamia show read: “I am Robert, writing
in Arua, 71% in Ntungamo and 88% in Apac. In 2010,
this letter for my father. He says it is good for parents to
STF will conduct more extensive listenship surveys of
use condoms to prevent AIDS and for family planning.
shows that have not been examined since 2005.
Condoms are also good for the man when he has sex
outside his family.” To a quiz on what causes poverty,
Buhoya Parent Talk Club wrote in: “Laziness of the
heart, not taking education as important, and eating too
much food.”

Listenership surveys are another measure of a show’s

popularity. In 2009 STF surveyed Straight Talk youth
radio shows in three districts. In Kisoro, “ever listened”
was 85-95%. In Moroto and Nakapiripirit, it was over

STF 2009 ANNUAL REPORT 23

Straight Talk youth radio shows
STF youth journalists struggle with the same issues as
their listeners. This creates immediacy. They are not adults
lecturing youth, although they sometimes do lecture.

C
harity Cheptoris,
25, presents
the Kupsabiny
youth show. Her
father rejected female
circumcision and
educated his five
daughters. “People used
to laugh at him but since
I graduated and got a
job, they say he had
sense,” says Charity.

Her area suffered famine in 2009, which increased
forced marriage. “Parents would say: ‘As long as my
daughter has small breasts, we can make her marry.’
They hope the husband might have a little maize. So I
encourage education on my show. Later some parents
get ashamed and say to me: ‘Ah we are doing those
things you talk about. Your words make us feel we
need to change.’ ”
“Sometimes I feel overwhelmed. Girls follow me. One
says: ‘I’ve got a problem with my private parts and
have never told anyone.’ Another says: ‘I carried out
an abortion. A local woman did it for me.’ I do not
have solutions. I advise and refer.
Charity assiduously demonstrates condoms. “Once a
teacher said: ‘So you are the people spoiling our
children.’ I said: ‘How will we protect them if we do
not talk about condoms? Maybe one child is behaving
well. But you know how God creates different types
of children. Another will need a condom.’ And the
teacher said: ‘What you are saying is true. You can
even hear that a pastor’s kid is pregnant.’”
In November 2009, on a Unicef-sponsored learning
trip, Charity spent a week in Senegal with Tostan,
the NGO that has pioneered a rights-based approach
to the abandonment of female genital cutting. Her
experience in Senegal will inform her work in 2010
as she continues to explore this sensitive topic with
her listeners.

B
renda Nakimbugwe, 21, runs STF’s Luganda youth
show. Field work is arduous, especially on the
islands in Lake Victoria, where there are only
three secondary schools and most adolescents work in
fishing, a business characterized by booms and busts,
daytime sex and alcohol.

Petite and cute, she says she can manage the crowds.
“At first, I was shy. Boys would say outright: ’I want
you to be my girl’. But this last year was smooth. I got
techniques to joke it off. I say: ‘you first finish school. I’ll
wait for you.’ Then I get back to the discussion.”

C
olline Atala, 22, is the radio journalist for STF’s
Luo youth show. “I know what I am doing is
helping young people, like a girl whose father
refused to pay her schoolfees. I aired a show on hope
after school drop out. She told me that after the family
listened, he accepted to take her back to school.

Although I am a virgin, I like demonstrating condoms.

Once a girl asked for a razor to open the pack and
then she unrolled the whole condom before dressing it
on the dildo. Many people do not know how to use a
condom.”

24 STF 2009 ANNUAL REPORT

Parent Talk: getting the men on board

S
tella Abwol, 30, presents
the Parent Talk radio
show in Lwo. Her show
received 848 letters in 2009,
more than any other STF show
for parents.

Says the former teacher: “As

people tell their stories, I pick
something. I am only four
years in marriage, but I have
met parents who have stayed
for 40 years. I have learnt that
marriage requires patience.”

“Most family problems come

from the man due to alcohol.
But I want men to love the
show so I do not criticize them
too much. I can say: ‘that
girlfriend you are loving may
also be loving someone else,
so it is better to stick to your
wife. You may be wasting your
Stella in Apac: “I point out the negative
parts of what men do. I tell them that it is
time and money and putting wrong to be violent.”
your family at risk.’”

Stella thinks her “softly, softly” approach keeps men in 2009, she subjects a man to a stiff grilling. He
on board. Over 70% of her letters come from men. describes a one night stand and the subsequent
“I encourage talk and reconciliation. On one show emotional turmoil.
I talked about a young man who made a girl
pregnant. He wanted to run away, but his parents Radio like this may do more to encourage healthy
said: ‘However much you run, this problem will not gender relations than tackling gender more
expire. You have to resolve it.’ The boy continued explicitly. Extramarital sex is a social norm for
loving other girls. But then he realised that he was men in Uganda, but this interview shows that
exposing himself to HIV. So he left his other girls is not taken lightly and can be accompanied by
and now has love for this girl.” shame. The UHSBS 2004-5 reports that 37% of
married men had a non-cohabiting sexual partner
Stella is convinced that persuasive arguments can in the previous 12 months.
sway men: “A man was marrying off his daughters.
So I wrote to him and said
that the men he
Radio script
is marrying his
daughters to may
not be able to
take care of those
daughters better
than if they were
educated. When I
visited him in the
field, he was pleased
and had put his girls
in school.”

Although Stella
handles men
delicately, in the
following interview

STF 2009 ANNUAL REPORT 25

 Working with the Pokot

T
he Pokot are one of two Ugandan groups that Uganda. They have caused excitement. As one 26-
practice female genital cutting (FGC). Pastoralists year-old listener exclaimed: “How did STF remember
who struggle with drought and armed raids (in that there is a tribe called Pokot? We have never
which they also take part), their history with outsiders had a radio show in our language. We are behind in
includes soldiers seizing their guns, officials insisting everything.”
they wear Western clothes, NGOs urging them to stop
FGC, and other pastoralists taking their cattle. Upon Another, 22, said: “I thank STF. We are forgotten.
starting work with the Pokot in September 2009, STF When we heard the vehicle, we hid because we
was anxious to break with this negative pattern. thought it was the army. You have come to teach us
many things which we did not expect.”
Alex Limale, who produces the show, had his own
anxieties. Keen to please his non-Pokot colleagues, his Touched, STF has struggled to create a good show. But
first script castigated FGC. Yet he clearly revered the there are few Pokot paravets or health workers to be
custom. “The surgeon women teach girls to respect “expert voices”, and violence is ever present.
their husbands. It grooms them to be good women,”
he explained off air. “Last night the enemy came,” narrated one Pokot.
“Luckily the dogs chased them.” One woman lamented:
STF decided that for now the show would simply “Dogs are the ones taking care of our animals now
allow the Pokot to talk about their lives rather than because we have handed our guns to the army.
try to “change” them. New shows were created in Yesterday a school boy was shot. The Karimojong are
which Pokot described animal killing us.”
diseases, famine foods and
marriage. Overwhelmingly, Focus groups, however,
they talked about their cattle. are animated and
“We are eating only wild orderly. Pokot sit
fruits,” one man, 26, said. “Our according to their
cows are dying. Are we all wealth in cows. Radio
going to perish?” manager Hassan
Sekajoolo explains: “If
Another man, 32, said: “If our you do not own any, you
cows die, we will not have sit at the back.”
any occupation. We are not
good at business. We migrate Limale is learning to
with our animals in search of write non-judgemental
water and pasture. That is the scripts. For now the
Alex, 23, has a diploma in development
nature of our life.” studies. A pastor paid for his education. show is beginning the talk
“Working at STF has opened my mind,” he that may help the Pokot to re-
Funded by Unicef, STF’s shows says. “People in Amudat appreciate my show think FGC. Explicitly tackling
are the only Pokot broadcasts in because I am the son of that place.” FGC will come later.

26 STF 2009 ANNUAL REPORT

 25. Menstruation
Topics of the 52 Straight Talk radio shows 26. Teacher –student relationship
27. Alcohol
Straight Talk youth radio shows 9. Early marriage 28. Rape
reflect the domains of highly-active 10. Family planning 29. Prostitution
HIV prevention, addressing a mix 11. Parent -child communication 30. Smoking
of biomedical, social, care and 12. HIV transmission 31. Forced marriage
13. Malaria 32. School drop out
treatment themes. Themes for 27
14. Hunger 33. Disability
shows are pre-selected in Kampala;
15. STIs 34. Pad disposal
13 arise from listeners; 12 are doctor 16. Famine 35. Life on the islands
shows. Below is a composite list. 17. Abortion 36. Pregnancy
18. Circumcision 37. Life in holidays
1. Physical beauty 19. Becoming an adult (girls) 38. Multiple partners
2. HIV vs Pregnancy 20. Becoming an adult (boys) 39. Why an ST club?
3. Teenage pregnancy 21. First sex (boys) 40. Careers
4. Your life your future 22. First sex (girls) 41. Income-generating activities
5. Self-esteem 23. Family planning 42. Condom consistency
6. Gender roles 24. Deciding the number of children 43. to 52. Doctor or Quiz shows
7. Achieving one’s dream
8. Girl-boy relationships

Radio partnerships Topics of the 52 Parent Talk radio shows

PACE: Parent Talk Luganda,
Lumasaba, 4Rs, Lwo. Eight spots/
eight languages on 32 stations:
malaria, basic care package and
disclosure.
Unity-MoES/USAID: Parent
Talk Ateso, Lwo, 4Rs, Luganda,
Lugbara.
HIPS-USAID: 13 half-hour Good
Life shows in Lugwere, Runyoro-
Rutooro, Luganda, English, Lwo.
SPRING-USAID: see p 43.
FHI: 13 half-hour shows on FP:
Lusamia, Luganda, Runyankore-
Rukiga, Lusoga on FP.
UNFPA: ten announcements in
nine languages for 2009 poster
contest.
WILD-USAID: five spots in
Lwo and Madi on biodiversity
conservation.
Parent Talk was funded in 2009 17. Happiest moment in marriage (men)
from four sources: Civil Society 18. Malaria
Fund, PACE, UNITY and Unicef. 19. HIV and family planning
The following is a composite list of 20. Faithfulness in marriage
topics. 21. Alcohol
22. Male involvement in family planning
23. Bride price
1. Sanitation
24. HIV and nutrition
2. Family growth and development
25. Children’s education
3. Saving
26. How to fight poverty
4. Bilharzia
27. Family planning (permanent)
5. Sex and marriage
28. Condom consistency
6. Condom use in marriage
29. Making a will
7. Women’s development
30. Partner communication on condoms
8. Domestic violence
31. PMTCT
9. Managing big families
32. Nutrition
10. Science of HIV
33. Palliative care
11. Cervical cancer
34. Pain management
12. Family planning
35. Taking care of children with HIV
13. Complications of ARVs
36. HIV and cancer
14. Child trafficking
37. Patient’s room and bed making
15. Cropping and fertilizers
38. Discordance
16. Happiest moment in marriage
39. Counseling
(women)
40. Palliative care for children
41. Couple support and HIV
42. TB
43. Kaposis sarcoma
44. Disclosure to children
45. Counseling children with HIV
46. Stress management
47. Malaria and net management
48. Multiple concurrent partners
49. Stories of children with HIV
50. Pregnant women and malaria
51. Spiritual support
52. Home-based care

Resty Nabwire (right), veteran Lusamia STF

journalist, in a Parent Talk conversation with a woman.
On her show, men have complained that their wives
become “dilute” -- that is, their vaginas are no longer
tight -- after giving birth to many children. They said that
this caused sexual disatisfaction and infidelity.

STF 2009 ANNUAL REPORT 27

Straight Talk youth shows: letters in 2009
S traight Talk radio shows for
youth received a bumper
crop of letters in 2009. The total
was 38,980, up from 27,700
in 2008. This was an average
of 2,292 letters for each of
the 17 shows, the second best
performance ever after 2005
when STF received 29,749
letters to just 11 shows, or 2,704
a show.
As in almost all previous
years, Lwo brought in the
most letters (5,681) in 2009,
followed by English (4,277),
and Runyankole-Rukiga (3,567).
Also as in previous years, small
28 STF 2009 ANNUAL REPORT
languages performed strongly,
eliciting more letters per young
person than the larger languages.
For example, the Lusamia show
which covers just two districts
and about 216,051 youth attracted
2,885 letters. In contrast, the
Runyoro-Rutoro show covers six
districts and about 611,572 youth,
yet received
just 3,111
letters.
Letters
increased to
all youth radio
shows. Some
journalists
doubled the number of letters
to their show simply by
interacting more intensely with
listeners (more dedications,
more questions answered) and
radiating commitment to them.
Much of the goodness of radio
is tone.
Letters to competition
questions constituted
the bulk (47%),
followed by questions
to the doctor (24%),
followed by letters
“appreciating” the
show. (See the pie chart
below.)
S
TF has been taken by surprise by Percentage distribution of ST radio letters by gender
the change in who responds to its
youth radio shows. Letter writers
used to be overwhelmingly male and
about 40% out-of-school. Today they are
equally divided between girl and boys
and overwhelmingly in school.

Only the
Year Male Female
Lugbara and
2004 82% 18%
Lwo shows still
2005 79% 21%
display the old
2006 79% 21%
pattern of boys
2007 70% 30%
sending in the
2008 61% 39% vast majority of
2009 52% 48% post.

Letters, however, are not a perfect % Male % Female

reflection of who is listening. STF
surveys have shown that even in areas Distribution of ST radio letters by educational status 2009
where almost all letters come from boys,
boys are only slightly more likely to
listen than girls.

Educational status of letter writers to

Straight Talk radio
Year Ter- 2ndary Primary Out-of-
tiary school
2006 5% 44% 10% 41%
2007 5.3% 51% 8.8% 35%
2008 4.6% 67% 6.5% 22%
2009 2.3% 75.3% 6.3% 16.1%
Language
Secondary
O-O-school
Primary
Tertiary

Parent Talk radio

show letters in 2009

L
iteracy levels are far lower in adults than youth.
Among women aged 40-44, for example, 60% have
either never been to school or only have “some
primary education”. Even so, letters to the nine Parent
Talk shows increased dramatically from 1,113 in 2008 to 3,884 in 2009. Parents were also invited to send text
messages, which brought in another 753. One text read: ““Pliz my sister, how long does HIV take? If you go for test
when will it get known?” Letters are overwhelmingly from males to the Lugbara, Luhkonzo, 4Rs and Lwo shows.

STF 2009 ANNUAL REPORT 29

 Sexuality and special needs
Adolescents in Kitgum sign as STF visits. Of the almost one million
people in Uganda with disability, 31% are aged less than 18.
S
TF has always been deeply
concerned about young people
with disabilities (PWDs), often interviewing
adolescents with special needs for its papers and
radio shows. In 2008 it produced radio shows in
14 languages and Young Talk and Straight Talk
newspapers on disability. However, deep concern is not
enough, and in 2009 STF decided to greatly increase
its involvement with disability.
Uganda’s National HIV and AIDS Strategic Plan
2007-12 singles out PWDs as a vulnerable and at
risk population. “Little information exists about the
burden of HIV among PWDs but their vulnerability
(has) been globally recognized... and their access to
services is much more limited” than that of the general
population. The Plan stresses the dual causality of HIV
and disability. ”While disability increases vulnerability
to HIV infection, HIV infection can also cause various
kinds of disability.”
Although WHO estimates that about 10% of the world’s
population lives with a disability, Uganda’s 2001
census found a lower figure -- about 3.5%.
Whatever the precise figure, in
2009 STF decided to ramp up
its investment in youth with
disabilities. Not only was it
concerned about them as a MARP
(most at risk population), the
anecdotal evidence was clear:
young PWDs were often sexually
exploited. They were also
missing out on HIV and sexuality
education. A 2007 study by
30 STF 2009 ANNUAL REPORT
NUDIPU (National Union of Peoples with Disabilities)
found that 11% of PWDs had never heard of condoms.
STF’s own research in 2009 in five schools for young
people with disabilities in Mukono and Kampala
found that 65% agreed with the statement that the
information available on HIV/AIDS and ASRH is for
non-disabled people.
Susan Ajok, STF’s director of programmes, was
particularly fierce about the need to move into
disability. “Groups like NUDIPU were coming to us
because we have mastered how to approach young
people. And we knew there were so many disabled
youth who were counting on us and wanting
something really tailored to their needs.”
Susan submitted a proposal to Cordaid. The Dutch NGO
almost immediately came back with a grant of UGX
230 million (US$118,613) for three years. In just a few
months STF entered a world of vulnerability it had only
previously guessed at.
Quinta (far left) at
Kisoro Demonstration
PS. The deputy head
mistress signs to
the pupils, who have
various special needs.
She told STF: “One
of our deaf girls was
raped last year. She
was 15.”
Quinta Apio, a special needs teacher, joined
STF as its Special Needs Coordinator in
August 2009. STF also took on two other
staff for disability in Gulu and Kitgum.

One of Quinta’s first tasks was to conduct

a baseline survey. As expected, this survey
found youth with disabilities to be more
vulnerable and excluded from information
and services than other youth. As Quinta
explains: “HIV materials have not been
disability friendly.” Rape, defilement, early
pregnancy and school drop out were found
to be common. A trainee peer educator signs at the Deaf Link-STF training. One asked:
“If you wash your private parts, can you transmit an STD?” A pupil at
The survey also found society profoundly Salama School for the Blind reads Young Talk in Braille.
ambivalent about PWD’s sexuality. “I witness
discrimination against people with disabilities so oral and aural. The deaf miss out on so much talk,
in hospital,” a nurse in Kitgum told STF. “People look and the reading culture is not strong.”
at them with pity as to how they can also be infected
with HIV. But sex is a normal instinct.” In late 2009, STF produced its first Braille versions of
Young Talk and Straight Talk. A Braille newspaper costs
Adolescents with disability spoke of neglect. “They UGX 12,600: each of the 24 primary schools and 15
want us to talk to their parents,” says Quinta. “Their secondary schools for the blind will receive five. Copies
parents do not tell them about body changes. The girls will also go to 30 partner organizations.
do not know how to pad themselves.” Each disability
has its own challenge. “Blind girls complain that they Print Director Teopista Agutu says: “We did not just
cannot see who rapes them,” says Quinta. “They say convert the usual STF papers into Braille. We went
their life is harder than the physically handicapped out and got stories from blind children. They said they
because they cannot see the world. People do not want know someone is approaching them sexually if they
to marry blind girls so when someone suggests love start whispering or saying unusual words of love, like
they feel very happy and easily give in.” offering sweet biscuits.”

But young people who cannot hear seem the most cut
off from ASRH conversations. Working with Deaf Link,
STF trained 60 peer educators in 2009. One trainee
signed: “If a woman has an STD, can she pass it to her
partner? Or is it only the man who can pass it because
he is the one who gives out fluids?”
Notes STF Executive Director Julie Wiltshire: “Their
intense isolation could be because Ugandan culture is
By the end of 2009, Quinta had formed links with 72
schools and over 100 organizations. She had hosted 80
people at advocacy workshops in Gulu and Kitgum. In
Kisoro she met with 163 people, including youth with
special needs. A calm and friendly woman, Quinta says:
“I want to serve them and find out how they want us to
do things for them.”

Promoting sexual and reproductive health for

persons with disabilities: guidance note
People with disabilities have the same SRH needs as other people, yet often face
barriers... The ignorance and attitudes of society and individuals raise most of these
barriers -- not the disabilities themselves. Services can usually be adapted easily
to accommodate them. Increasing awareness is the first and biggest step. Beyond
that, much can be accomplished through resourcefulness and involving persons with
disabilities in programmes.

1. Persons with disabilities have sex too.

2. Persons with disabilities want the same things in life that everyone wants.

Considered in society as less eligible marriage partners, females with disabilities are
more likely to live in a series of unstable relationships.

STF 2009 ANNUAL REPORT 31

Face-to-
Face
Primary Teachers sensitized in 60 schools in Bugiri, Kaabong, Abim, Kotido, 234
schools Nakapiripirit districts
YT peer educators’ trained in above schools 480
Sub-total 714
Secondary Teachers sensitized in 30 secondary schools in Bugiri and Rakai 85
schools and ST peer educators trained in same 30 schools 140
some Students followed up with dialogue on cross-generational sex in 50 26,255
tertiary schools in Mukono, Wakiso, Mpigi, Masaka, Luwero
Students reached by international volunteers in 20 schools in Rakai 5,614
Students reached on “on-call visits” to 72 schools and 10 NGO/CBO
partners in Mayuge, Jinja, Masaka, Mukono, Kasese, Kampala 3,276
Students who attended Straight Talk Club Convention from 49
schools in Mukono, Kampala, Wakiso 1,010
Sub-total 36,380
Out-of- Staff of CBOs trained to conduct follow-up for STF in Bugiri, Arua, 85
school Kaberamaido, Rakai, Abim, Kotido, Kaabong, Nakapiripirit
setting District leaders/partners reached through meetings in Bugiri, Rakai, 351
Namutumba, Adjumani, Moyo, Amuru
Adults and youth reached in village health fairs in Dokolo, Rakai, 3,290
Kaberamaido, Adjumani and a teachers fair in Oyam
Adults reached in workplace on sex/HIV/gender (HIPS-USAID, 699
CESVI)
Parents of peer educators reached with dialogues in Bugiri, Abim, 1,240
Kotido, Kaabong, Nakapiripirit, Arua
Community members, peer educators, stakeholders reached on 733
special needs in Gulu, Kitgum, Kisoro, Kampala
Sub-total 6,398
Grand-total 43,492

32 STF 2009 ANNUAL REPORT

 Outreach and training

OTD mobiliser Adreen Kanyesigye in a session with primary school peer educators in Onduparaka PS, Arua.

S
TF’s third stream of communication is
interpersonal or face-to-face. This includes the
work of STF’s Outreach and Training Department
(OTD) in Kampala and its youth centres. Face-to-face
work began in 1996 when Straight Talk started visiting
schools. In 2009, the OTD team worked in 22 districts
and directly reached about 43,492 people.
The golden rule of all OTD interventions is that
participants get a chance to talk. “We are there to
listen,” explains OTD’s Falal Rubanga. “If you rush
people, you do not get anything out of them. They feel
you are not interested in them, that you are just there
to put up a show.”
educator trainings and 25 health fairs. Each team
member spent over 180 days on the road.
Work in schools
Primary: From 2001 through 2008, STF sensitised a
total of 18,765 teachers from 8,367 primary schools.
In 2009, STF sensitised 234 teachers from 60 schools
in the districts of Bugiri, Kaabong, Abim, Kotido and
Nakapiripirit. As an innovation, however, STF linked
its 16-hour teacher package to a peer education
training for pupils in the same schools. The aim is
that the pupils will help teachers, all of whom are
overburdened with multiple duties, to carry forward
HIV and sex education.

The total budget for OTD in 2009 was UGX249,562,000 Assessed rapidly in May 2009, this dual approach
(US$127,981). Coming largely from SIDA, the Civil appears promising. Teachers say the peer educators
Society Fund and Unicef, this amounted to US$3 per have revitalised assemblies, counseling and the
person reached directly, excluding salaries. Face-to- reading of Young Talk. Peer educators are animated
face contact is more intense than about their new skills. A boy from Arua said: “We talk
print or radio. The average about HIV/AIDS. We also show
person reached is in contact in a drama what happens
with OTD staff for at least five when you are forced to marry.”
hours. Said a girl from Bugiri: “We are
able to teach others. Before
If youth reached by CBOs girls could not talk about
and peer educators oriented menstruation openly. Now
by STF are counted, then they can say words they used
OTD indirectly reached an not to say.”
additional 67,940 people,
for a total of 104,406 people Secondary: Uganda has over
reached. 3,500 secondary schools.
Immense resources would be
In 2009, the OTD team required to reach all of them
partnered with eight local and, in 2009, OTD reached
CBOs and held six district about 150. This was not
advocacy meetings, eight inconsiderable: most OTD
teacher sensitisations, 42 A primary peer educator shares her sessions in schools last many
parent dialogues, 12 peer opinion at the training at El Shadrai PS, Bugiri. hours.

STF 2009 ANNUAL REPORT 33

In all, OTD: Work in the
community
• Trained 85 teachers and Village fairs: For out-
220 peer educators in of-school adolescents
44 secondary schools and adults in their
in Bugiri, Kabermaido communities, STF runs
and Rakai, focusing village fairs, intense day
on schools around HIV long events held in shacks
hotspots such as fish and under trees. VCT is
landing sites and the offered and DVDs are
Jinja-Tororo highway. played (Unicef’s film “Sara”
runs for children). But the
• Conducted “on call” main item on the menu is
visits to 17 schools, talk.
reaching over 3,900
students. Among schools In 2009, OTD conducted
visited were Cambridge OTD’s Peter Mubala (above) with primary 25 village fairs in Dokolo,
Secondary School, Emma pupils at a teacher workshop in Oyam. (Below) The Rakai, Kaberamaido, Adjumani
High School, Comprehensive joyous STF Clubs Convention in Kampala. and Oyam districts, reaching
College, Buganda College 3,290 youth and adults, about
SS, Masaka SS, and St Janan 130 people per fair. Mobilisation is done in advance by
Luwum SS. local officials. “We arrive in the village at about nine.
We are six: two from STF, two lab technicians and two
• Worked in 25 schools in Rakai. Ten students from counselors,” says Falal Rubanga. “HCT sets up, but for
Munich University led by STF’s Moses Sebbale spent many people to gather, you have to be patient. They
one month in the district, reaching 5614 students. come after digging or fishing. But once there, they
“We would start with drama for the entire school, usually stay until evening.”
then break them up into classes and according to
sex,” explains Moses. “In Rakai schools there are After people congregate, there is group talk about
many young positives. People are not associating “the challenges and common things”, as Falal calls
with them, and some have even given up on life. The them. The team then conducts large group pre-test
headteachers were so happy that we had come.” counseling so that all day people can slip out for HCT.
She then splits the gathering into groups: young males,
• Visited 46 schools to wrap up a three year project young females and parents. “You do not want to mix
with PACE-PSI addressing cross-generational sex in them because they are not comfortable,” she says.
Luwero, Mpigi, Wakiso, Mukono and Masaka.
Falal has a deep understanding of the HIV and sexuality
• Hosted an “STF Clubs Convention” on 14 Aug 2009. issues facing different age groups across the country.
A total of 49 schools participated. Naguru Teenage “Young men always ask about masturbation. Fishermen
Centre helped 69 students to undergo HCT. say: ‘There are no women on some islands. You have

34 STF 2009 ANNUAL REPORT


to do it yourself.’ And they ask about condoms. ‘Since
condoms are not available, can we recycle them?’”
The young women struggle with neglect and violence.
“Parents say the girls just get married early but when
you listen to the girls they say their parents push them.
From the age of 12, parents tell them that they are old
enough to buy their own Vaseline. So the girls start to
cling to boys for support. It’s extreme
poverty.”
In the adult groups, says Falal, the
parents complain that the children
do not listen. “Then they accuse
each other of infidelity. That’s where
we bring in the importance of good
communication. I talk about how there
has to be unity. Sex will be good if a
couple is united. Children will be good
if parents are united.”
Excluding salaries, health fairs cost
about US$5 per person reached. At
the fairs in 2009, 2,729 people tested
for HIV: 101 (3.7%) tested positive, of
whom 61 were female. The prevalence
ranged from over 5% in Dokolo and Rakai to less than
1% in West Nile.
Parent dialogues: In 2009, OTD reached 1,240 parents
of the learners in the schools in which STF conducted
peer education training. Parent dialogues help parents
help their children (e.g., stay in school, manage body
changes) and manage their own sexual and marital
issues.
In the day-long dialogues, parents come see that they
A mini fair (above) on an island in Lake
Victoria, Moses Sebbale talks through a microphone.
(Far left) Moses and Falal on the canoe to the isalnd.
(Centre) island lovers: HIV prevelance is 20-30% on
some islands, according to MOH. (Below) STF’s Faith
Falal.
can do better by their children. As Falal explains, “They
say ‘Long ago we used to discuss meaningfully with
our parents at the fire place. These days we do not
guide children.’”
Parents also come face-to-face with their sexual
lives through STF dialogues. “A woman will say:
‘My husband is beating me and
has a younger wife. We are not
communicating. When you were
talking, I felt you were talking
about us.’”
Men are often openly frustrated
about sex. “One man was not
having sex at home because there
were children and grandchildren
everywhere. He was buying
prostitutes. He wasn’t happy about
it and said – ‘I think I am going to
stop.’ Other men say that that every
time you want to touch her, there
is a baby hanging off her nipple or
she is saying that the baby is still
awake.”
Falal starts the discourse by saying that she is also a
parent. “I say that if we go astray, the home is open
to things that can destroy it. I say that a child is like a
stew pot in which you put in ingredients. In the end
you want a nice flavor.” Parents are deeply receptive.
In Bugiri, a man, 57, said: “I have three wives. I spend
time with only two of the wives. From today, I realize
that I have been unfair to the one woman and her
children.”
STF 2009 ANNUAL REPORT 35
Karamoja
Working in Karamoja can be a clash
of cultures. Arid terrain inhabited
by deeply traditional cattlekeepers,
Karamoja looks timeless. In fact, it is
a place of turmoil. Besides the armed
raiding, the traditional succession
of elders has not happened for 50
years, leaving younger men angry.
In 2009 OTD focused on the
districts of Abim, Kotido, Kaabong
and Nakapiripirit. With funds
of UGX 138 million, STF partnered with Unicef to
promote enrolment and retention of children in
formal education, persuade parents and teachers of
the importance of adult-child talk, and contribute to
prevention of HIV.
Although the UHSBS 2004-5 found prevalence among
Karimojong to be 1.7%, the lowest of any ethnic group,
it may be rising. Young people are perceived to be
starting sex earlier than their parents’ generation.
Whether or not this is true, they have the same feelings
and pressures as adolescents elsewhere: of 212 letters
received from pupils in Karamoja in the last quarter of
2009, 113 were related to sex. “Is it true that when a
girl starts her menstruation early she has been having
sex?” asked Rose, 16, in P6 at Kotido Mixed PS.
A total of 154 teachers from 40 schools took part in
STF’s two day dialogues on sexuality and HIV/AIDS.
Later a teacher said: “We appreciate how you helped us
to think about the upbringing of our boys and girls. Yes,
our boys value cows more than school and our girls
prefer early marriage. We are ready to address gender.”
In Karamoja, a boy who prefers school to looking after
animals may be thought weak. Young girls are told that
education can turn them into prostitutes.
Teachers responded particularly strongly to the gender
sessions, scoring just 22% on pretests but 82% on
post-tests. A male teacher from Abim said: “We
thought that our wives are the ones to do things that
make our marriages healthy. But you made us know
that good discussion with children promotes healthy
behaviour and staying in school. Second, we learnt
that tolerance and respect for a partner make marriage
enjoyable.”
OTD staff trained 320 pupils (200 girls, 120 boys) from
classes P5 and 6 for three days to be peer educators.
The training covered: being a boy or a girl; growing up
and body changes; HIV transmission and prevention;
care and support of people with HIV/AIDs; life skills
(self-awareness, coping with emotions, assertiveness,
peer resistance, conflict resolution, critical thinking,
decision making); what is peer education?; and how
peer educators can help others.
Following the training, a boy from Komukung Boys PS,
36 STF 2009 ANNUAL REPORT
“The OTD team was happy that
it saw no naked Karimojong, though
locals say that walking naked is still
a way of life in far communities.”
Jerolam Omach, Director Face-to-Face
Kaabong, said: “Straight Talk told us
that body changes are normal and that
we should be in school and not begin
sex. We learnt that grazing animals on
school days is bad because they make
us miss school. Girls learnt that they
should not marry early. They should
first study.”
Peer educators are using what they learnt to reach
other pupils. Most conduct an activity three or four
times a week, such as assembly messages, skits,
educational songs, group talks, and Young Talk reading.
OTD estimates that from September to November 2009,
the Karamoja peer educators repeatedly reached the
entire P3-7 population of their 40 schools – about
26,000 pupils.
Partnering with CBOs
In 2009, OTD entered into understandings with eight
CBOs, four in Karamoja. STF hoped to create win-win
relationships under which CBOs would grow from STF’s
oversight, while STF would have proxies in districts
able to motivate STF clubs and peer educators and
teachers trained by STF. Travelling to districts is costly,
making supervision prohibitively expensive. As a
result peer educator systems can lapse into dormancy.
STF’s expectation was that CBOs would distribute STF
newspapers and support the work of peer educators
every month. For this the CBO would receive UGX
1.6 million a quarter, a fraction of the cost of a trip
up-country. This was calculated on the basis of UGX
40,000 per school visited per month (about $20).
STF assessed 22 CBOs (11 in Karamoja). They had to
have a certificate from the NGO board or District Health/
Community offices, be formed and managed by local
people, exhibit gender balance, conduct at least half
their activities with youth, and have office premises
and transparent accounting systems. STF signed MOUs
with the eight that best met the criteria.
OTD trained 85 CBO members in 2009, reviewing STF’s
core values and activity and financial reporting. Most
CBOs have had little intellectual and practical guidance
and hungrily devoured the one day orientation, in
many ways pathetically inadequate given the enormous
social problems faced in their commmunities. Susan
Adeke of Youth Alliance in Karamoja in Nakapiripirit,
said: “You helped us to understand more about gender
and being friendly when working with adolescents.”
These partnerships have boosted the number of youth
writing letters to STF, and STF “conversations” in
schools and communities have increased. The CBOs
themselves have found their profile raised through their
 Parents (left) dance for STF before the start of
the parents dialogue at Lomokora PS, Kotido. (above)
trainee peer educators act a skit in a primary school
in Nakapiripirit district.

link with STF and the trickle of funds that allow them Club, Rakai Town Council Youth Group, Nkumba ST
to be more active. Scovia Bashangire of God Cares, Club, Nyendo ST Club, Namasuba ST Club, UWEFA
STF’s Rakai partner, says that the modest STF grant has ST Club, Kisilwa Village, Hima Cement Factory, and
enabled them to provide allowances to their volunteers. Namuwongo Youth Group.
CBO workers say they have learnt more about human • Held advocacy meetings for ASRH in Bugiri,
sexuality (content) and activity and financial reporting Namutamba, Rakai, Adjumani, Moyo and Amuru:
(process). All eight CBOs have managed to submit 351 local leaders attended. In Rakai, the LCV
monthly reports. Chairperson said: “We need STF to help us know
how to handle the too many orphans we have. Just
In 2010, OTD staff will meet twice yearly with the let us know the things you need to do your work.”
CBOs, refreshing their resolve and bringing them up- The Moyo District Health Officer said: “We will
to-date with new STF policies, such as child protection support STF’s youth centre with clinical services.”
(e.g. no bad touches). • Helped train 667 peer educators on tea and sugar
estates and flower farms under HIPS-USAID
Having successfully managed these sub-grantees, in project.
2010 STF will look at the quality of their work and how • Trained 32 staff of CBOs in Pader and 77 new STF
it can grow its footprint upcountry with such proxies. staff in ASRH and youth friendly services.
This could be one way STF manages its over 1,400
clubs. If STF had one
CBO per district, how
much would it cost and
how many more people OTD distributed
US$10,000 worth of
could STF reach? It is
sports gear to the 60
not yet clear how much
primary schools with
supervision a sub-grantee
peer educators in 2009.
needs. Each school received
two footballs, netballs,
Other volleyballs with nets and
In 2009 OTD also: chess boards. After sports
• Visited out-of-school events, peer educators
clubs and youth address pupils and hand
groups including out Young Talk.
Mwoyogumu Youth

STF 2009 ANNUAL REPORT 37

 Youth Centres

A breakdance festival at GYC; (far left)

lab technician Bob Otto tests blood for HIV on
a community camping; (left) young mothers,
who gather weekly at GYC to talk about sexual
health, manage their own savings scheme.

S
TF youth centres are safe havens for adolescents
and hubs from which staff reach out to schools
and surrounding communities. In 2009, STF’s
youth centres in Gulu (est. 2003) and Kitgum (est.
2007) were joined by mini centres without medical
services in Amuru, Adjumani and Moyo. This expansion,
funded by PEPFAR, was a dream come true.
13,906 tests, of which 5.1% were reactive for HIV in
females and 2.58% for females. Kitgum Youth Centre
(KYC) performed 9,804 tests: of which 2.87% were
reactive for females and 1.68% for males. GYC provided
family planning for 1,043 females and KYC for 452. STI
treatment was extended to 1,763 young people in Gulu;
KYC treated 544 (188 males, 356 females).

In Adjumani, STF is the only national NGO focused There were also on-going groups for young mothers
on ASRH. Amuru district has no electricity, bank or and young positives, of whom 255 received Septrin
resident doctor. STF’s Amuru centre is a shop across an prophylaxis.
unpaved road from Anaka Hospital.
Talk is at the heart of STF’s youth centre model, even
As STF rolled out its youth for biomedical interventions such
centre model at speed, as HCT. On outreach HCT, KYC
young people poured in. The and GYC camp for three nights
Amuru centre had innovative in villages so that talk can go on
Saturday morning sessions after dark.
for children aged six to nine.
It also ran a young men’s Overall, STF youth centres
forum, worked with former reached over 90,000 young
LRA combatants, and called people with a total expenditure
all its young people “pals”. of UGX 782 million (US$400,000).
This was UGX8358 or US$4.20
In all, the five centres per person, slightly higher than
gave out just under 85,000 in previous years due to the
condoms, a great increase start-up costs of the mini centres.
on previous, more cautious
years. Gulu Youth Centre Young People reached in 2009
(GYC) distributed 56,000,
Gulu 35,462
most supplied by the district
health office. Kitgum 28,472
Amuru 14,875
At the established centres, Moyo 8345
medical teams offered HCT, Adjuman 6203
family planning and STI Total 93,557
treatment. GYC conducted

38 STF 2009 ANNUAL REPORT

 “Culture is good but there is HIV...”
I
n 2009 Dennis Kibwola, 31, became
STF’s Director for Northern Uganda.
Manager of GYC since 2003, he
has seen great change, from war to
a “year with no gun shots” in 2009.
But despite the peace, economic boom
and closure of camps, enormous sexual
health challenges persist, says Dennis.
“Boys are back in the villages, burning
charcoal. School is very far away, and
their goals have shifted from education
to starting a family. In the camps, you
could not think of marrying. Parents
would say: ‘Do not bring anyone’s
daughter. We are poor.’ But now boys
can marry. There is food.”
“Girls are in a dilemma. They say the boys are
aggressive. They say: ‘He raped me because I refused
him.’ But the family’s concern is to protect its dignity.
Parents say: ‘I wouldn’t want anyone to know that
my daughter was raped. It’s a disgrace to the family.’
A day in the life
of a counselor
I
n 2009, STF devised a log
book to be filled out daily
by each youth centre staff
member. Christine Lamwaka is a
GYC counselor. On 11 November,
she took part in HCT, talked
with seven young people one-
to-one, and met a group of 30
adolescents. In all, she worked Small group talk at STF youth centre in Moyo (left). Counselor Christine
with 47 youth. (right, in blue) holds her log book as she has a private one-to-one in Gulu.
Her seven one-to-ones were:
1. Boy, 18: Has been having unprotected sex, would
like to start using condoms.
2. Girl, 21: Has a boy who promises to marry her but is
scared because a girl says he has HIV.
3. Girl, 16: Has boyfriend who tells her to prove that
she loves him otherwise no love anymore.
4. Boy, 19: Has bruises around his penis.
5. Girl, 17: Abstaining but friends
say she will not give birth if she
doesn’t have sex.
6. Girl, 18: Boyfriend says he is
not willing to continue with her
yet she has missed her periods.
7. Girl, 17: Boyfriend has not
yet tested for HIV yet wants
strictly unprotected sex.
Counselor Angela Anyait was
similarly busy that day. She took
part in HCT, then counseled five
Rape is seen as the girl’s fault. Parents
say: ‘We do not want to be tagged as a
family with loose girls.’ So girls have to
please their parents who want them to
keep quiet. But at the same time they are
worried about their health. It takes a lot
of strength to insist.”
“At STF, we are in conflict with culture.
Our message is very clear. If a girl is
raped, rush for HCT, ECP and PEP. We
say: ‘Yes, virginity is dignity and culture
is good, but we are talking about HIV,
pregnancy and being forced to marry
someone who does not love you. Help
your daughter.’”
“We need youth centres in this post-conflict time just
as much as before. We have put the young people at
a certain level. We do not want them to slide back. In
my village, GYC did an outreach. People told me: ‘A
woman came with something that looked like a penis.
She opened our ears.’”
young people one-to-one.
1. Girl, 15: Has had sex with lover. Would like to stop.
2. Boy, 17: Wants to abstain. Wanted clarification on
myths about abstinence.
3. Boy 15: Tested positive. Feels so bad about it -- says
he has never had sex although his parents died a
long time ago.
4. Boy, 17: Had no one to sponsor him in school. This
has prompted him to get a girl lover. They will
use condoms.
5. Girl, 15: Very many boys disturb her. She does
not want to have sex until she has finished
school.
The log books help to keep staff on task and
also document critical moments in the lives of
young people. Youth centre staff become skilled
at judiciously suggesting safer options and ways
forward.
STF 2009 ANNUAL REPORT 39
Working against violence, supporting PEP
Liz Adong, clinical officer at Kitgum Youth Centre,
with a SGBV survivor at KYC.
I
n 2009, the US foundation MAIA granted STF UGX
41.5 million (US$ 21,230) for work on sexual and
gender-based violence (SGBV).
The objectives of the grant were to: increase
knowledge of SGBV; challenge gender norms that
lead to high incidence of HIV; protect survivors from
HIV, unwanted pregnancies and other complications;
counsel survivors and refer them for legal and medical
help; and empower young people with life skills to
prevent and report sexual abuse.
Over the year, the grant allowed 48 young people to
receive post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP), the ARVs
which are taken by an HIV negative person after
possible exposure to HIV to prevent infection.
KYC and GYC lack the cadre of medical professionals
to administer PEP, so staff escort survivors to a Health
Centre IV, the IRC-supported clinic in Kitgum or the
Joint Clinical Research Centre in Gulu and stay with
them until they have been helped. Few of these young
people would have received PEP if it had not been for
STF.
40 STF 2009 ANNUAL REPORT
The STF-MAIA initiative did much more than PEP,
however, as described below.
Kitgum
KYC’s clinical officer Liz Adong trained eight females
and seven males, a mix of young people and adults, to
sensitise communities and identify SGBV survivors for
referral. This community action team (CAT) and KYC
staff ran 39 dialogues, reaching 903 women and 1,119
men. Liz also oversaw three live radio shows. KYC’s
areas of focus for SGBV in 2009 were Kitgum town,
Mucwini and Lokung.
All told, 145 survivors were helped: 80 received just
counseling, mostly girls who had come too late for PEP
or emergency contraception (ECP). Another 33 received
medical help from KYC: HCT, ECP or antibiotics to
prevent STIs. Of this group, 19 received PEP. Another
32 were referred for legal services at ANPPCAN.
Liz’s notes contain success stories:
Girl, 16: raped by a stranger at night at home when
her parents went for a funeral. Neighbour reported case
to LC1 who referred her to KYC after hearing KYC radio
show. Survivor given psychosocial support, HCT, ECP,
STI prophylaxis and escorted for PEP. Followed up after
3 weeks, she is doing fine.
Mature woman, identified by CAT member. Had been
sexually abused by the husband (anal sex or using
other objects) for years. Family dialogue conducted with
the clan leader.
Girl, 16: mother brought daughter for Depo provera
so that she can have sex for money without getting
pregnant (sexual exploitation). Both were counseled,
and follow-up made to ensure girl’s safety.
Gulu
Jackie Akongo runs the SGBV work at GYC,
concentrating on Paicho subcounty and survivors who
present themselves to GYC. In 2009, she, her colleagues
at GYC and her CAT reached about 1,160 people. She
also facilitated four live radio shows, hosting police,
social workers and doctors. Of the 65 survivors she
worked with, 29 received PEP.
Jackie’s reports present a mixed picture. Alcohol
has been restricted in Paicho, which is perceived to
have decreased violence. The police are also more
conscious of SGBV. But, in at least one instance, it was
a policeman who “defiled a girl”. Says Jackie: “When
the case was reported, the constable was transferred.”
She also notes: “the police keep quiet on some cases
because perpetrators pay them some money.” The
following are some of her cases:
Girl, 16: raped while collecting firewood. Did not
report due to shame. Head of a family of four, she
was negative for HIV. Not given PEP or ECP as it was
 their child had died of AIDS. Boy tried
to hold the man. But woman, bleeding,
bit the boy. He received PEP.

Gender and PEP

In writing this report, it emerged
that boys were obtaining PEP after
consensual sex. In Kitgum, of the 19
young people who received PEP, seven
were boys (37%). Says Liz: “They have
unprotected sex, usually drunk, and
then rush to test, bringing the girl. If
the girl is positive, we escort the boy to
get PEP. Girls do not dare to come after
sex and cannot make a boy come.”

In Gulu, 9 out of 20 (45%) of those

who received PEP were males. Jackie
notes a boy, 20, who “demanded PEP
because he had sex with a girl he
distrusts and the condom burst”.

Says STF Executive Director Julie

Wiltshire: “These stories highlight the
need to test together before getting to
a point where a condom bursts or you
are too drunk to use one. We have to
Jackie Akongo (above) in deep talk about a case
of violence in Gulu. be careful not to abuse PEP. It is a one month course of
ARVs, which is not to be taken casually.”
beyond 72 hours.
MOH guidelines say that PEP should be free after
Girl, 13: defiled by step-father as they went to uproot forced sex or accidental exposure such as a needlestick
cassava. Said the girl: “My father asked me if I knew or car crash. They do not address PEP after unsafe
how much money he had spent on me and how I was sex. Dr Zainabu Akol, the MOH’s AIDS chief, says it is
going to repay it. He raped me, then ran away.” Given “scientifically correct” to provide PEP after unprotected
ECP at GYC and PEP at JCRC. sex, but cautions that “the counseling should be very
strong. The boy should be told not to repeat it.”
Young woman, 23: gang raped. “The soldiers told
me to put down my firewood and have sex with them. Boys seem disproportionately able to access this
Because they were many, I had to follow their words. expensive and scarce biomedical prevention method,
The three had sex with me one after another.” Tested although few report sexual violence. In contrast,
negative: given ECP at GYC and PEP at JCRC. although girls are more likely to experience sexual
violence, including incest and gang rape, they are less
Girl, 5: defiled by cousin, 17, while grazing goats. able to access PEP – because of shame and family
Mother of girl saw boy silence. In 2010, STF will strive to
running away half make PEP more girl-accessible,
dressed. The case is especially for young girls. The
in court. She received average age of a boy receiving
PEP at JCRC. PEP was 19 compared to 16
for girls. STF will also strive to
Girl, 16: defiled address sexuality issues of boys
by uncle. Case was and their likelihood of resorting
silenced to protect to PEP after consensual sex.
image of the home. Girl
conceived and wanted In all, the MAIA-STF initiative
to commit suicide. GYC reached 3,400 people, of whom
was called and survivor 210 were intensively counseled.
counseled but uncle This works out to about
escaped. US$6.25 a person. STF thanks
MAIA for providing support in
Boy, 18: a couple were this critical area.
KYC and CAT talks to the community in Mucwini
accusing each other of about SGBV.
bringing in HIV since
STF 2009 ANNUAL REPORT 41
 National interns

I
n 2009, STF hosted seven young Ugandans as
interns. Shirley Bananura worked in radio and
Irene Musiime in Research and Evaluation. In
their S6 vacation before joining university, they
earned UGX 5,000 a day. STF pays interns so that
they can cover their costs of transport and lunch,
although often they save the money for school or
their families.

Five young people with diplomas or university

degrees interned for six to nine months in 2009.
Earning UGX 10,000 a day, they were Jane Nambafu
and Deborah Mbulayina in outreach and training;
David Kizito in radio; Gordon Turibamwe in design;
and Jane Opio in OTD. Competition for jobs is intense
among university graduates, and an internship is a
chance for a young person to become employable.
Although having interns puts demands on staff, STF
learns much from them. In 2009, Gordon and David,
both perinatally infected with HIV, deepened STF’s
understanding of the travails of living positively.
Both are from families of five children but are the
only ones with the virus. Interestingly, honed by
years of attending support groups and tenaciously
Gordon Turibamwe and David Kisito, interns in
2009, in design and radio.
tracking down ARVs and doctors, they have skills
many young people their age lack, particularly the
ability to talk with adults. Both applied themselves
to their internships with a ferocity borne of a lived
knowledge that the world is a tough place. Having
made themselves indispensable, they received
contracts to work at STF in 2010. Gordon was one of
two designers who assembled this annual report.

International interns

N
umerous international volunteers were
associated with STF in 2009. Gina Akley
worked on a masculinity curriculum; Warren
Kleban with American Jewish World Service on IT;
Mary Hansen from Mt Holyoke College on a savings
and loan scheme for child mothers; Benjamin
Harms from Princeton on special projects; Johanna
Simon from New York University’s Wagner School of
Business on PR; Emily Simon, formerly of Goldman
Sachs, on financial sustainability; and VSO Daryl
Dano on disability. There were also volunteers in
the northern centres from Sweden and Germany. Stuart Angus, a doctoral candidate in Organisational and
Management Studies at the University of Manchester, conducted
ethnographic research for his PhD on the meaning of language at
STF and the extent to which staff believe they respond to the needs
of beneficiaries, a term he called response-ability.

Yoshi
Notmasu,
a Japanese
cartoonist
and illustrator,
spent six
months as a
Hannah Corry, a Peace Corps volunteer JICA volunteer
served at Gulu Youth Centre for six months, in STF’s design
where Mellisa Adams, a Fullbright fellow, ran a department.
breakdance for social change project.

42 STF 2009 ANNUAL REPORT

Special projects
Karamoja

2
009 marked the fourth year of STF programming
in Karamoja. Building on its partnership with
UNICEF in 2008, STF expanded access to its
multi-modal communication programme by starting
Straight Talk radio shows for two ‘doubly-marginalised’
groups, the Pokot and Lepthur, while maintaining the
Ng’akarimojong Straight Talk and Parent Talk radio
shows . “Face-to-face” expanded with peer educator
and teacher trainings and parent dialogues. STF also
trained 25 Junior Journalists to generate conversations
on traditions, aspirations and fears. In 2010, STF will
use the knowledge gained from this rich stream of
participatory communication to expand the breadth and
depth of its work in Karamoja.

SPRING
This USAID project promotes economic security, peace recommendations was released
and reconciliation, and access to justice in northern Spea
in 2009. Youth leaders were then
king
Uganda. As the communication partner, STF uses print of the
Needs,
for O
An As
urselv
se es
trained, with six groups receiving
Resourc ssment

small grants. Projects ranged from

Availa es, an
ble to d Gaps
in Kitgu Ch

and radio to empower the population and SPRING

in
m Distric ildren and Yo Services
t, North uth
ern Ug
Dec anda

advocacy to hip-hop to mentorship

ember
2008

Implementing Partners with “actionable information”. In

2009, the communication package included 52 editions
of the live one-hour “Peacemaker” show, 52 of the 30-
minute pre-recorded “Dongo Paco Karacel” (“Together
We Can”) show, 13 live
shows for SPRING partners,
12 spot messages (aired
3,393 times/seven stations),
two issues of Dongo Paco
Karacel newspaper in
Luo and English, one
poster (600 copies),
and two editions of a
Quarterly E-newsletter.
STF also facilitated a
communication skills
training.
“Kacel Watwero”
In August 2008, STF and
World Learning began work
to improve the status of
OVCs in the North with the
“Caring for Exploited and
Vulnerable Children” Youth Leadership Project. Kitgum
Youth Centre worked with the School of International
Training to rapidly assess services; a report of
and livelihoods initiatives: 19 youth
leaders and 400 OVCs took part.
SMS Health Search
The Google SMS Health Search and Clinic Finder
service launched in June 2009. Following its
collaboration with Grameen Foundation
AppLab and Marie
Stopes Uganda
during the pilot of
the service, STF
now serves as
the lead content
generation partner
for this mobile
phone-based health
information service.
UNFPA Poster Competition
STF worked with UNFPA on its annual poster contest,
in 2009 on “Women in Development”. STF produced
spots in ten languages (aired on 23 stations/ two
weeks) and a poster. STF hosted poster sessions in
Adjumani, Amuru, Gulu, Kitgum, Moroto and Moyo.
Social Media at STF
To grow its international network and make its
materials more available, STF started a Social Media
push. All recent STF publications are now available on
Scribd at: http://www.scribd.com/Straight%20Ta
lk%20Foundation. Since STF went on Scribd in May
2009, the STF page has received over 35,000 hits.
Donors, partners and individual supporters around the
world can now follow STF on Twitter (STF_UG) and
join the STF “cause” on Facebook. In 2010, STF plans
to podcast its radio shows and revamp its web site.

STF 2009 ANNUAL REPORT 43

Research and Evaluation

I
n 2009 STF’s research and
evaluation team carried out
ten studies. Three were
baseline surveys or formative
research at the onset of new
efforts. Seven were end or mid-
term evaluations. The full list is
as follows:

• Evaluation of Parent Talk

radio shows in Lumasaba
2005-9 for PLWHA (PSI)
• Evaluation of Parent Talk
radio shows in Lumasaba
2006-9 (UNITY: MOES/USAID)
• Baseline among Madi youth STF researcher Evelyn Namubiru (L), now on a masters degree
prior to setting up youth centres and course in Holland, holding a focus group discussion with parents in West Nile.
launching a youth radio show in Moyo
and Adjumani districts (PEPFAR)
• Evaluation of STF peer education approach in the Lumasaba area.
primary school in Bugiri and Arua 2008-9 (CSF)
• Evaluation of scale up of VCT and FP and STI services All the baselines showed the profound need for
to youth in Gulu district 2007-8 (NUMAT/USAID) dialogue about sexuality and relationships to prevent
• End of project operations research: Engaging HIV infection.
communities – a holistic project for Karamoja region
Feb 2008-Feb 2009 (Unicef)
• Formative study of Pokot and Lepthur youth prior to
Teacher Talk and Parent Talk
The only study of STF’s print work was the evaluation
start of local language radio shows (Unicef)
of three issues of Teacher Talk for primary schools
• Evaluation: Straight Talk in Kisoro 2007-9: Fostering
and one issue for secondary schools. Of 153 primary
adolescent sexual and reproductive well-being with
teachers interviewed in Apac, Arua and Ntungamo
communication for social change (Cordaid)
districts, 83% had ever read a copy and 50% had
• Baseline of SRH knowledge and practices among
read all three. Of the 35 secondary school teachers
youth with disabilities in Gulu and Kitgum (Cordaid)
interviewed, 66% had read the single issue for
• Evaluation of Teacher Talk newspaper and Parent
secondary schools.
Talk radio shows in Lugbara, 4Rs and Luo July 2008-
June 2009 (UNITY/USAID)
One primary teacher said of the February issue on
ethics and the Teachers Code of Conduct: “It is a
All of the above can be obtained from pwalugembe@
refresher course for me, a reminder”.
straighttalkuganda.org

The same UNITY-funded study

In 2009, STF also disseminated its
interviewed 301 parents in the
mid-term evaluation of its 2006-
same three districts about Parent
10 Strategic Plan, entitled It works!
Talk radio shows in their local
Communication for HIV prevention
languages. “Ever listened” was high
and social change in adolescents.
at 88.3% in Apac, 74.5% in Arua
The report is available on Scribd at:
and 70.6% in Ntungamo. Asked
http://www.scribd.com/Straight%
had they learnt something from the
20Talk%20Foundation.
show, 78% of parents said they had.
Men were more likely to say that
The mid-term and all the evaluations
they had “learnt something” than
in 2009 confirmed the robustness of
women: 81% versus 73%.
STF’s model, emphatically so in the
case of local language radio, which
The researchers categorised what
even succeeded in specifically
parents felt they had learnt into eight
reaching people living with HIV,
themes. By far the leading theme,
64% of whom had “ever listened”
with 42% of mentions, was “the
to the Parent Talk radio show in
importance of talking to and being

44 STF 2009 ANNUAL REPORT


Research manager Patrick Walugembe (L) in a
focus group discussion for the HIPS project in Bukedea
district.
free with children”. “I am slowly learning what to tell
my children. I did not know what to say before.” said
a mother in Apac. “I have been able to overcome my
shyness and become bold to speak to my children
about their lives,” said a father in Ntungamo.
The second most mentioned theme (16%) was parents’
own sexual behaviour. “For me the main lesson is that
I should use condoms for protection against HIV so I
can be around for my children,” said a father in Arua.
“Learnt about adolescent sexual and reproductive
health” followed closely at 13%.
These strong findings reinforce STF’s commitment
to parents. Studies show that parents are super-
protectors: their presence and the quality of their
relationship with the children are the greatest
determinants of adolescent well-being.
R & E team: (L to R) Emily Awour, Reserach
Manager Patrick Walugembe, Florence Kyokusiima,
Isaac Kato and Director of Programmes Susan Ajok.
Kisoro: multiple-channels
The largest study in 2009 evaluated STF’s work in
Kisoro from July 2007 and August 2009. Because the
district is remote and isolated linguistically and STF
had a large data set on adolescents in Kisoro from
a 2005 Population Council study, this project was a
virtual natural experiment in what communication for
social change, particularly local language radio, can do.
The project appeared to make a profound contribution.
“Ever listened” to a Straight Talk radio show rose from
the baseline of 14% in 2005 to 89% in 2009. The
percentage of adolescents saying they did not know
where to go for information about ASRH fell from 27%
in 2005 to 3% in late 2009. The percentage saying
“don’t know” when asked if condoms are an effective
way of preventing STDs fell from 52% to 7%.
Probably most important of all, the percentage of
adolescents saying that their parents had talked to
them about sex and growing up almost doubled,
while the percentage saying that their parents were
knowledgeable about sex and growing up rose by a
factor of six.
Adolescents who said they used a condom at last sex
doubled, those that said that their last sexual partner
had tested for HIV increased by more than four times,
and the per cent saying they had had sex for money or
gifts in the past 12 months fell by half – although the
sample size was small for these three questions.
STF believes it can trace these changes at least partly
to its work. Almost 90% of young people in Kisoro
had some exposure to STF interventions, with many
having multiple exposures (radio plus print plus face-
to-face). STF’s
analysis suggests
that the project
cost US$0.86
per adolescent
reached per
year. The report
is available
on Scribd at:
http://www.
scribd.com/Stra
ight%20Talk%
20Foundation.
In 2010 STF’s
R&E team
will focus on
evaluating
its core
interventions: its youth
newspapers and radio shows and its face-to-face work.
STF 2009 ANNUAL REPORT 45
Finance and administration
Finance
team: Accounts
officers Josam
Miiro, Patricia
Amito, Nicodemus
Ogwech, Brian
Kaganzi and
Finance Director
Bruce Ntege.
Missing are Finance
Manager Juliet
Waiswa, accounts
assistant Dorcas
Arayo, cashier
Cecilia Kandeke and
Finance internal auditor

I
n 2009, STF had a total income of UGX
7,465,284,500 or about US$3,828,351, slightly
less than its income in 2008. But funding for STF’s
core work to improve the well being of adolescents
increased from UGX 4,486,618,475 in 2008 to UGX
5,519,033,172 in 2009.
About 82% of STF’s core income and 60% of its
total income come through the Civil Society Fund.
Administered by Deloitte, CSF manages monies largely
from Danida, Irish Aid, Dfid and PEPFAR. Danida’s
funds are currently earmarked for STF at US$1 million
a year. CSF monies were used for radio shows in 12
languages for youth and shows in two languages for
parents: Straight Talk and Young Talk newspapers;
most face-to-face interventions, including the five
youth centres in northern Uganda; and to support
salaries and overheads.
Robert Tumwijukye.
trees in Yumbe; UGX 9,820,000
from the sale of seedlings; and
UGX 133,112,163 from Danida for Farm Talk.
In terms of its mass media communication, STF spent
21% of its expenditure budget on radio and 12% on
print. Face-to-face communication consumed 19% of
expenditure, breaking down into 9% for outreach and
training, 5% for Gulu Youth Centre, 4% for Kitgum
Youth Centre and 1% for the three mini-youth centres.
UGX 18,653,000 (US$9556) was spent in four months
on work with people with disabilities, a new area for
STF.
Overheads and administration constitute about 11% of
expenditure, and about 20% of STF’s expenditure goes
to salaries. The average salary is UGX 865,000 per
month (US$443).

Long-standing donor Sida also contributed UGX In 2009, STF embraced improved financial and
166,320,000 to core activities, and the Dutch NGO, procurement procedures and trained staff on Navision
Cordaid, supported the Lufumbira youth radio show in software and online banking. Additional training on
full and associated activities, including special needs. financial and narrative reporting to STF staff was
Unicef is currently a core funder covering all costs for provided by Deloitte.
STF’s work in Karamoja.
Human Resource/Administration
Funding from USAID amounted to UGX 1,015,129,242 STF has 144 staff, including 77 in Kampala, 24 at Gulu
(US$520,000), partly to execute partnership projects Youth Centre, 18 at Kitgum Youth Centre and three at
such as Everyday Health Matters under
AFFORD but partly for work that is central
to STF’s mission. UNITY, for example,
supported Teacher Talk newspapers
and Parent Talk radio shows. The US
NGO PSI, now constituted as PACE in
Uganda, contributed UGX 394,478,515
(US$202,000) for Parent Talk radio shows
and spots

Funding for natural resources – trees

and farming – amounted to a total of
UGX445,462,563 or 6% of income,
with UGX 289,170,500 for Tree Talk
from WILD-USAID; UGX 10,960,000 from HR/Admin team: From left to right: Director of HR and
private philanthropists for tree growing in Kumi; Administration Christine Abbo; HR assistant Stella Olaboro; and
UGX2,400,000 from the British High Commission for Administration officer Eva Kirungi. Missing is procurement officer
Draga Carmello.

46 STF 2009 ANNUAL REPORT

 Expenditure by activity or department
of all funds received by STF in 2009

Particulars Amount STF Expenditure 2009

Print 899,928,318 Loan Repayment
Radio 1,559,855,047 1.67%
ICT Building
1.52%
Outreach department 632,073,750 Print
Capacity Building Administration 12.25%
Natural resources 437,269,821 0.81% 9.20%

GYC 354,821,476

KYC 317,698,749

Mini youth centers 109,343,735 Personnel

Radio
21.23%
Disability activities 18,653,000 20.33%

Research & evaluation 113,488,968

Partnerships 442,208,644

Personnel 1,493,708,011 Disability Outreach

0.25% 8.60%
Capacity building 59,302,483 GYC
Monitoring 4.83%
KYC
ICT equipment 111,450,444 1.54%
4.32%
Mini-centers Natural resources
Administration 675,922,621 1.49%
Partnership
6.02% 5.95%
Loan repayment 122,810,881
Total 7,348,535,948

each of the three mini-youth centres. Six STF staff work
in Karamoja. Tree Talk has eight staff, Farm Talk two.
Nineteen new staff members were recruited in 2009.
Some filled new positions such as the posts of radio
journalists for the Madi, Lebthur and Pokot youth radio
shows. Others replaced the 11 staff who left in 2009.
Currently four STF staff members are on masters
courses in Germany, Japan, Holland and the USA.
Tragically, one member of staff died in a motorcycle
accident in Northern Uganda: John Oryem was a Tree
Talk field officer in Amuru.
aspects of its operations, including capacity building
and strengthening of systems to become more efficient
and effective as an organization. STF endeavors to
create environments where staff are encouraged to
invest in self development and continuous learning.
A team of ten staff, led by the Director of HR and
Administration completed a Virtual Human Resource
Management training conducted by Management of
Health Sciences (MSH) in early 2009. This training
will assist STF in creating a future HR plan and
incorporating a human resource strategy into STF’s
next Strategic Plan.

STF spent UGX 52 million on the staff medical scheme,
workman’s compensation and staff training. Staff have
their own staff-run savings scheme called Apple.
In 2009, STF reorganized its HR & Administration
functions. As STF had grown with the number of field
offices increasing, it became essential to centralize all
payroll and statutory payments in the Kampala office.
This has resulted in improved performance with faster
payroll processing.
STF is also embarking on an ambitious ICT
improvement scheme to help it better meet the
communications needs of the future.
Another STF team of ten staff, this time lead by the
Director of Programmes, completed an MSH Virtual
Leadership Development Programme on Monitoring
and Evaluation towards the end of 2009. This capacity
building has helped STF improve the monitoring of
its programs. The VLDP trainers gave very positive
feedback to the both teams’ performances and
enthusiasm in completing the training.
STF is grateful for the support by donors and
organizations to providing capacity building of STF
staff.

STF values continuous quality improvement in all

STF 2009 ANNUAL REPORT 47

STF ANNUAL REPORT FINANCE TABLE
YEAR 2006 2007 2008 2009
KEY DONORS UGX UGX UGX UGX
DCI 368,164,560 84,315,000 - -
DFIDD 1,310,737,247 582,914,388 - -
DANIDA 1,142,888,760 - - -
SIDA 470,000,000 594,208,000 391,857,157 166,320,000
CIVIL SOCIETY FUND - 867,500,000 4,094,761,318 4,545,903,129
UNICEF - KARAMOJA 350,648,196 259,288,093 522,068,345 625,148,034
CORDAID - 76,515,000 82,950,000 181,660,000
Sub Total 3,642,438,763 2,464,740,481 5,091,636,820 5,519,033,172
USAID
UNITY 166,303,200 93,831,050 173,758,565 189,938,869
UPHOLD 309,579,589 185,000,000 81,697,875 -
NUMAT - - 40,652,700 29,192,487
PSI (PACE) 214,450,500 168,000,000 462,547,778 394,478,515
CORE 155,119,500 62,010,450 - -
YEAH 298,609,402 206,297,165 149,653,105 -
SFS-PATH 169,815,690 142,856,050 85,640,625 77,245,546
ENGENDER HEALTH - 35,741,991 5,441,700 7,877,500
ARC 30,500,000 17,718,750 - -
AFFORD - 216,245,490 - 102,564,403
HCP in 2007/FHI in 2009 - 63,256,922 - 12,980,000
HIPS - - 154,125,000 241,164,975
SPRING - - 163,288,354 192,290,495
WILD - - 436,574,400 289,170,500
Sub Total 1,344,377,881 1,190,957,868 1,753,380,102 1,536,903,290
OTHERS
TREE TALK (other) 294,988,800 74,975,000 39,425,453 12,220,000
NEMA 13,104,587 - - -
IRC 2,600,000 - - 5,225,000
MLK - SCHOLARSHIPS - 5,083,000 5,026,205 -
UNFPA 31,500,000 69,400,000 17,350,000 45,636,808
FAO – RADIO - - 34,511,001 -
MVULE - SCHOLARSHIPS 201,730,100 210,234,000 29,000,000 -
DANIDA – BIRD FLU 92,250,000 - - -
DANIDA – FARM TALK - 95,296,880 100,827,038 133,112,162
DANIDA – MDG 3 - - 580,000,000 -
DFID – MONEY WORLD - 782,686,455 - -
HEWLETT/TIDES – S’SHIPS/TREE - 65,949,420 25,091,500 10,960,000
BOTTLE TOP - SCHOLARSHIPS - 16,483,688 - -
GTZ –VOCATIONAL CAMPAIGN - - 10,009,005 10,080,400
GRAMEEN/GOOGLE - - 11,371,500 13,744,000
UCB - KIDS LEAGUE - - 22,155,714 1,800,000
CESVI - PADER - - 6,000,000 3,113,025
MAIA – PEP/SGBV - - 32,100,000 41,500,000
SAVE THE CHILDREN – GYC - - 62,380,632 93,157,673
WORLD LEARNING – KYC - - 53,156,300 32,418,970
PATH – WORLD BANK - - 10,290,500 6,380,000
Sub Total 639,173,577 1,320,108,443 1,038,694,848 409,348,038

Total Funds Received 5,622,990,221 4,975,806,792 7,883,711,770 7,465,284,500

DANIDA

Department for
International
Development

48 STF 2009 ANNUAL REPORT


is a Ugandan NGO, set up in 1997. It grew out of a
teen newspaper, Straight Talk, started in 1993.
Today it practises Communication
for Social change. Its main focus is
preventing HIV in ADOLescents.
STF also supports Parents and TEachers
to have safer and healthier sexual lives and to help
adolescent have safer transitions to adulthood.
STF adheres to a Know your epidemic-
know your response approach and
follows a Sexual health promotion model.
In 2009 STF worked in 17 languages. STF
communicates through Radio, print and
face-to-face.
STF’s is concerned for the well-being of all
adolescents and their families. However, it is
particularly concerned about the most-at-risk,
especially Girls, Orphans, adolescents
living with HIV or with special needs,
and adolescents in complex environments such as
fishing communities.
In Uganda 12% of girls are married by age 15
and 46% by 18. Married girls face a multitude
of challenges. They usually have less mobility,
less access to media and less autonomy in
decision making than unmarried girls or
married women. They are often isolated from
their peers.
Because they have regular sex that is rarely
protected, they are at high risk of HIV infection:
89% of ever married girls aged 15-19 have
started child-bearing.
Population Council, 2009. The adolescent experience
in- depth: using data to indentify and reach the most
vulnerable young people: Uganda 2006.
ABC Abstain, Be faithful, Condom use
ARVs Anti-Retrovirals
ASRH Adolescent sexual and reproductive health
BCC Behaviour change communication
CBO Community-based Organization
DHS Demographic and Health Survey MoES Ministry of Education and Sports
ECP Emergency contraception pills
FGC Female genital cutting
FGD Focus group discussion
FP Family planning
GYC Gulu Youth Centre
SUPPORT FOR THE BATWA
With funds from Dutch NGO Cordaid, in
2009 STF started to work with one of
Uganda’s poorest and most marginalized
groups, the Batwa. Former forest people
who are landless, members of this group
are sometimes called “pygmies”.
Batwa women are often sexually exploited
by people they call Abaturaja or “citizens”,
a reference to non-Batwa.
“Abaturaja come to us at night for sex
and give us HIV. We try to stay away from
them,” says Ventina, the Batwa queen.
“Another problem is that we do not guide
our children about growing up. This is
because each one of us cares mostly
about food for survival.”
“The Batwa have shallow knowledge about
HIV,” notes Quinta Apio, STF’s special
needs officer who spent time with the
Batwa in Kisoro in 2009. “Poverty causes
unsafe sex as they have something-for-
something love.”
Under the Cordaid grant 2009-12,
Quinta and her team will meet two Batwa
communities in Kisoro every quarter. At
right is Ventina (with white beads) and her
group of Batwa.
STF Board of Directors
Chair: Aggrey Charles Odere, Rev Gideon Mondo Kyateka, Anne Akia
Kibenge, Principal Advocate, Lex Byamugisha, Assistant Fiedler, Country
Assistant Uganda Christian Aid Commissioner for Representative,
Secretary, MoES Youth, MoGLSD Pathfinder Int’
PMTCT Prevention of mother-to-child transmission
HCT HIV counselling and testing PSI Population Services International
IDI In-depth interview PWDs People with disabilities
IDP Internally displaced person 4Rs Runyankole/Rukiga/Rutoro/Runyoro
KYC Kitgum Youth Centre SGBV Sexual and gender-based violence
LRA Lord’s Resistance Army SRH Sexual and Reproductive Health
STF Straight Talk Foundation Dr Frank Kaharuza, Justina Kihika, Oliva Muhumuza, Catharine Julie Wiltshire,
MOU Memorandum of Understanding STI Sexually Transmitted Infection Director, Research, Freelance Headteacher, Watson, Executive
NGO Non-governmental organisation UGX Uganda shillings CDC/UVRI Consultant Railway President, STF, Director, STF,
OVC Orphans and vulnerable children UHSBS Uganda HIV/AIDS Sero-behavioural Survey Children’s PS Ex-oficio Ex-oficio
PEP Post-exposure prophylaxis UPE Universal Primary Education
PEPFAR President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief USE Universal Secondary Education
 In 2009 Straight Talk
Foundation (STF) produced
over 12 million newspapers
and 5000 half-hour radio
shows for adolescents and
adults. It reached over 255,000
young people, parents and
teachers through its face-to-
face work.

STF’s materials are the main

and often only source of
affirming, values-based
and scientifically-accurate
information on HIV, sexuality
and growing up in most
Ugandan communities.

STF sends its materials to

18,600 schools, 1780 health
centres, and 1040 churches
and mosques, and 1600 CBOs.
It also works with 450 NGOs.

STF creates “conversations”

to address the drivers of HIV
epidemic and bring about
social change.

In 2009 it began a new focus

on young positives and
adolescents with special needs.

Plot 4 Acacia Avenue, Kololo,

P.O. Box 22366 Kampala, Uganda,
Tel: (256 31) 262030, 262031,
Fax: (256 41) 534858,
Email: info@straighttalkuganda.org,
Website: www.straight-talk.or.ug,
General Scribd site:
http://www.scribd.com/Straight%20
Talk%20Foundation

Report Design: Michael eB. Kalanzi

In 2008 STF had 77 staff and interns in its head office

in Kampala. However, with teams constantly traveling
upcountry, it was never possible to get them all together.
The above photo was taken in January 2010. In total STF
has 144 staff across Uganda.