The ‘Young Neglected Adolescent Mothers

Support Program’ Project

Name of Project: "Young neglected adolescent mothers Support Program”

Organization Name: Golden Trust Savings and Credit Union

Office Address: Nansana – Gombe, Wakiso District

+256753001045
Email: goldentrustunion@gmail.com

Name of Contact Person: Semakula Adam

Organization Managing Director,

Project Location: Wakiso district of Uganda

Project Start/End Date: January 2023 – December 2023

Proposed Project Budget: $38,600 USD

For Support Send To:

Bank Name: DFCU Bank Uganda
Account Name: Golden Trust Savings and Credit Union
Account Number: 01150010559857
Swift Code (international Transfer) DFCUUGKA 

Introduction
Globally, there are more than 1.8million adolescents aged 10–19 years (UNFPA).
Approximately 34.8% of the Ugandan population is adolescents. (UBOS:2020) The high
prevalence of adolescent motherhood in Uganda and particularly the central and eastern
regions is worrying and raises public health concerns. Adolescent mothers are vulnerable to
many maternal health challenges including; child care, stigma, unfriendly services at health
centers and early marriages. Oftentimes adolescents do not disclose their reproductive health
challenges to their parents or guardians due to fear and concerns about how communities will
treat them, and, as a result, they do not utilize health services. This is attributed to inadequate
health-related information, ignorance about health needs and rights, limited financial
resources, poor attitude of health care providers, and poor attitude of community members.
Adolescent reproductive health is influenced by several complex, interrelated factors ranging
from individual (personal preference, previous experience), socio-cultural (family, peers and
communities, community and cultural beliefs), socio-economic (education, employment,
financial status), and health systems (attitude of health workers, reproductive health
commodities, quality of services). Although both male and female adolescents experience
reproductive health challenges, female adolescents are at a greater disadvantage.
Through our continued work in Wakiso district of Uganda, it was discovered that the COVID-19
pandemic lockdown presented different challenges among which is teenage pregnancies resulting
into a new generation of adolescent mothers. According to Wakiso District Health report, at
least 10,439 girls below the age of 19 years got pregnant in the 2020/21 financial year. Of
these, 442 are below 15 years of age. Matugga, Gombe, Kigogwa, Kawanda and Nansana
town councils registered the highest cases of teenage pregnancies. Some teenagers have
already given birth whereas others are expecting soon. A 13-year-old pupil of Nsamizi
Primary School in Entebbe carries a five-month-old embryo after she was purportedly
impregnated by Charles Amena Oloya, a pastor who is currently remanded at Kitalya Prison.
She however notes that after delivering in January 2021, the support started dwindling. She is
currently struggling to look after herself as well as the child.

Golden Trust Union has through our work of the improving of the health sector in Wakiso
district through reproductive health (HIV/AIDS and mortality controls) and micro medical
care (provision of dewormers and Vitamins) through conducting medical camps. We directly
work with government health centers, more specifically, Wattuba Health Center II and
Rwadda Health Center II, Gombe Health Center II and Buwanbo Health Center II. Working
together with health workers enables them to better understand the challenges of pregnant
adolescents and young mothers.

Problem/Situation analysis

Although the global number of newborns deaths declined from 5 million in 1990 to 2.4 million
in 2019 (WHO:2020), children face the greatest risk of death in their first year. Children who
die within the first year of birth suffer from conditions and diseases associated with lack of
quality care at birth or skilled care and treatment immediately after birth and in the first days
of life.

Each year in Uganda at least 45,000 newborns die, the country with the fifth highest number of
newborn deaths in sub-Saharan Africa. Many more do not reach their full potential due to
preventable illness or disability. Uganda has a strong network of health centers and hospitals
to provide a continuum of care to mothers and newborns but the numbers of mortality under
one year-olds still remains high most especially outside the urban centers. While most women
access the formal health system during pregnancy, quality of care and links between facilities
must be improved in order to address the gap in service utilization around the time of
childbirth and the early postnatal period, when most maternal and newborn deaths occur.
Many newborn deaths are preventable with appropriate knowledge and practices at the family
and community levels, and with appropriate care-seeking when danger signs are recognized.
However, life-saving practices are not always followed due to poverty, cultural beliefs, lack of
household food security and poor access to health care.

To improve newborn survival within the continuum of care, it is important to provide quality
reproductive health, micro-medication and new born care information to rural women and
their families. The ‘Young Mothers Support Project’ will directly reach the young mothers and
their babies in-hard to reach areas within their homes with educational materials, vaccinations,
medication, treatment plus economical developmental training and supply of sawing machines
and salon equipments to start up their own businesses so as to support their day to day life.

Project description

The organization has designed this support project that will have a ‘Nursing Bag’ which shall
be a special bag consisting of medical supplies, babies’ nutrient foods like powered milk, soya
pollage, sugar, baby wears plus treatment materials. The project will mobilize to acquire and
support 200 newly born babies and their mothers within the Wakiso district of Uganda in their
first 12 months. The COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns resulted into many young adolescent
girls getting pregnant and now have given birth. These have been abused, neglected,
stigmatized as well as domestically violated. Without any child care knowledge, little
information on maternal health and hearsay from peer-to-peer reproductive health information
and cultural norms, these adolescent mother’s chances of raising of babies is extremely
difficult. We will create safe spaces for the baby and their mother in a conducive and loving
environment. We will create rapport with the mothers to ease the flow of information
dissemination.
Also the organization has designed to support these young neglected and abandoned mothers
with economical support through providing them with training in economically generating
activities like hairdressing, baking and tailoring/fashion design and providing them with
equipments like solon hairdressing machines, sewing machines and baking stoves so that they
manage to start up their own businesses to support their lives with the children.
How to collect data
During the outreaches, our teams will assess the maternal health challenges of the beneficiaries
as well as the social and economic challenges of mothers in hard-to-reach areas. The
community health workers will assess every beneficiary, collect samples, conduct thorough
medical checkup and return the samples to the health centers. As soon as the results are out,
the medical worker will prescribe drugs and recommend further assistance. The community
health workers together with the village health teams will then disseminate the medication.
The village health teams will support and refer beneficiaries to different health centers. We
will use an emergency mobile line to receive very urgent cases that need immediate support
especially from mothers and their babies born within the first 28 days.

We will register all the adolescent mothers within the project including their names, addresses,
phone numbers of spouse, guardians or parents, together with a small bio. On a weekly basis,
we will monitor the mother and the baby to ensure health standards are met within their
homes. We will make 200 ‘Nursing Bags’ that will be used by health workers and village
health teams. These will be filled with the necessary materials from health centers.

The 10 community health workers will reach out to the homesteads of these adolescent
mothers to administer medication; 10 village health teams work hand-in-hand with our teams
to mobilize, identify, maintain the beneficiaries and disseminate medication; and 2 medical
workers will prescribe and provide medication to the babies and their mother.
The 6 trainers will carry on the skills training program to train the young mothers in income
generating activities for 50 days that is 10 days every month for five months. The trainings
shall be conducted in the community hall.
The project will commence in December 2022 and it will run through to December 2023 with
200 selected adolescent mothers in hard-to-reach areas in Wakiso district of Uganda.
Project Framework

Goal: By December 2023, 200 young mothers’ babies will be fully vaccinated, immunized and are protected from the six killer
diseases and their mothers shall be fully equipped with business skills and given income generating equipments to use.

Objective 1: To register 200 young Objective 2: To improve service availability Objective 3: To provide business skills
mothers within the hard-to-reach and quality for disease prevention to young training to young mothers and give out
communities of Nansana mothers and their babies in hard-to-reach income generating machines to start on
municipality areas business work.

Activities under Objective 1: Activities under Objective 2: Activities under Objective 3:

 Community mobilization for  Training young mothers on  Identify the mothers potential and
young mothers immunization and vaccination desires in what she can learn and do
better in business
 Registration of new born  Vaccination and immunization drive
babies of babies  Training teenage mothers with skills
in business.
 Making of nursing bags for  Counseling service sessions for
outreach young mothers  Provide sawing machines, hair
dressing machines and baking
machines to young mothers.
Project outputs

 New born babies receive vaccination services

 Family planning services provided to young mothers
 Immunization services taken directly to the young ones
 Increased knowledge to young mothers on raising their babies
 Reduced on mortality rates under 5 years through counseling
 Increased business skills to young mothers
 Self sustenance in young mothers
 Reduction in unemployment within youths
 Good health in new born babies.

Project Monitoring
Project indicators

Output/process indicators Outcome Indicators

 200 young mothers registered
 200 babies get vaccinated
 Immunization services reach over 200
new born babies
 Over 200 children receive nutritious
foods for proper growth
 New database of young mothers
monitored
 Reduced diseases for children under 1
year-old
 Healthy babies in healthy
communities
 Reduced numbers of malnourished
children
 Self sustainability in young mothers

Monitoring Activities
 Initial profiling of beneficiaries will provide us with a comparison base of before and
after
 We will record all our progress from the start to finish of every quarter and
beneficiaries (young mothers).
 All partners will receive copies of reports with follow-up measures to be taken
 During the trainings, we will record all the beneficiaries, their views and their concerns
 Follow-up all the beneficiaries to ensure they receive the services for their babies
health
 Provide all participants with information and receiving feedback from them to analyze
the project progress
Sustainability

 The project coordinator will provide daily oversight of the grant and will be key staff
to the project
 The medical worker will provide necessary medical direction and guidance to the staff
for 200 beneficiaries under this project
 The skilled trainers shall conduct all business training courses and guidance to the staff
for 200 beneficiaries under this project
 The community health workers will coordinate project services and project activities,
including training, counseling, communication and information dissemination on a
monthly basis
 The ‘Nursing Bag’ will be designed and made out with its equipment included that
stores medication for treatment, for example, vaccinations, family planning, etc
 IEC materials and hand-outs will be designed with relevant information to benefit the
adolescent mothers

Implementing organization’s details

Golden Trust Saving & Credit Union was started way back in 2020 with 30 members and later
was fully registered by the Government of Uganda under the Community Based Organization
Act and is operating in Nansana – Gombe division. The organization has steadily developed,
grown and currently is serving more than three hundred union members in our division. The
organization was established by three founders after realizing a number of difficulties the
division was facing. These ideas were later presented to local members who later decided to
join together to form up a union with an aim of solving all the arising needs in our community.

Our Vision
Create self-sustainable individuals in Nansana municipality.

Our Mission
To empower community members to participate in the fight against poverty and poor health

Our motto
“Empowering to Prosperity”

Organization Goals
1. To build a strong financial base to assist youth to borrow and save for self-sustenance
2. To provide medical assistance within the communities of Nansana
Capacity statement

 Health camps in the communities of Nansana municipality that attracted 500 people
with 260 young mothers attend
 Distribution of immunization and vaccination services to young mothers during the
2020 and 2021 COVID19 lockdown with Wattuba Health Center II

The role of Donor in the project

 Financially support the project through provision of funds amounting to $38,600 to

implement the Young Mothers Support Project
 Inclusion in all the branding materials during and after the project.

Project Budget
Item Amount required Price per item Total cost
Nursing bags 200 bags 12 USD 2,400 USD
Immunization vaccine 200 vaccine tubes 20 USD 4,000 USD
Nutritious foods
Soya porridge 2000kg 3USD 6,000 USD
Powdered milk 200kg 20USD 4,000 USD
Community 1,000 USD
mobilization
Trainers 5 teachers 300 USD 1500 USD
Doctors 10 doctors 100 USD 1000 USD
Tailoring machines 30 pieces 100 USD 3000 USD
Hair dressing 35 pieces 120USD 4200 USD
machines
Baking stoves 35 stoves 100 USD 3500 USD
Total 38,600 USD