TeamUp Uganda unites the expertise, networks and resources of the three local organizations Action 4 Health Uganda (A4HU), Hanns R. Neumann Stiftung Africa (HRNS) and Whave Solutions. They are implementing in the sectors of Health, Agriculture as well as Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH). They work together to integrate their core competencies into a unified approach to benefit young people in Mityana.
Action for Health Uganda (A4HU)
Action 4 Health Uganda (A4HU) is a youth empowerment organization dedicated to mainstreaming young peoples’ engagement in socio-economic development and promoting Sexual and Reproductive Health(SRH). A4HU strives to empower young people through service delivery, capacity development, civic education, mentoring, and advocacy work. We support Youth Empowerment Centres (YECs) and youth clubs in leadership and organizational development, group management, life skills and sexuality education, entrepreneurship and business development. We strengthen local communities including local government and health facilities to provide youth friendly services and to include young people into decision-making processes.
Action 4 Health Uganda operates mobile rural outreach services using its Youth Truck, which give access to information and training to vulnerable young people in hard-to-reach areas and supporting the peer-led outreach events.
A4HU strives to achieve maximum impact by empowering young people to become;
- Active agents of change; engaging with governmental and non-governmental organizations, communities, and individuals in a diversity-sensitive manner;
- Working with partners on multi-sectoral projects to build synergies and to jointly achieve stronger outcomes; working to develop independent and professional community based organisations (CBO’s);
- Expand our impact by replicating, upscaling, and ensuring our approaches and ideas are accessible, especially to vulnerable populations;
- Using holistic approaches by integrating population, health and environment aspects;
- Mainstreaming gender into all our policies and programming
A4HU advocates for the prioritization and provision of health services for young people at national and sub national level to enable the establishment of a supportive socio-cultural, political and legal environment, which protects young people’s rights. It enables them to access health information, education and services that are gender sensitive and youth friendly and promotes young people’s access to Sexual Reproductive Health information, services and supplies through capacity building of peer educators and health workers to be able to establish mechanisms to strengthen the availability and provision of youth friendly services.
A4HU also promote socio-economic opportunities for young people by coaching, mentoring and developing their life skills and livelihood skills in order to increase their capacity to meet their needs and further builds the organizational capacity of our partner organizations using our state of the art training center in Lubowa and through mobile outreach services. Our training methodologies are needs based, experiential and focused on results and processes.
Hanns R. Neumann Stiftung (HRNS)
HRNS is a private non – profit foundation that ensures suitable support of smallholder farmers in areas of agriculture, farm management, youth, gender, climate and organisational development. Within TeamUp, HRNS takes the lead in the activities centred on agriculture and development of entrepreneurial skills. The HRNS approach sets up Youth Farmer Field Schools (YFFSs) to support young people by developing their skills in entrepreneurship, business development, agronomy and key life skills. Emphasis is also put on the integration of gender mainstreaming to ensure equal opportunities through Couple Seminars that train the youth on joint household planning and joint decision-making.Other core activities include; climate smart agriculture that takes into consideration the real time effects of climate change and mitigates their effects on productivity in agriculture.
HRNS is an implementer of farmer and youth support. Through its experience, HRNS has developed a wealth of knowledge on coffee-based livelihood concepts worldwide. Its approaches are comprehensive but very practical at the same time supporting agricultural practices, farm, and household management, adaptation to climate change, development of farmer organizations, gender equality, intergenerational dialogue and skills enhancement of youth.
In addition to coffee, HRNS also emphasizes the importance of diversification of production systems as a means of stabilizing cash flows and conserving natural resources. The connection with complementary social and health services, better communication, infrastructure, transport etc. contribute to raise the attractiveness of rural areas and enable future generations to achieve a perspective and a real alternative to migration.
Whave Solutions
In Uganda more than a third of rural water sources are non-functional, and another third are not adequately functional. Whave is a Ugandan non-profit social-enterprise that was founded to address this problem by providing preventative maintenance to assure reliable functionality of safe water sources. Over the past three decades, there has been heavy investment in the drilling of boreholes, which are left with no reliable maintenance plan. The pumps break quickly, but due to a lack of trustworthy and reliable maintenance, communities are hesitant to pay for repairs. As a result, there are long down times. Substandard parts are also common, which lead to more breakages and partial functionality. This forces communities to resort to unsafe water sources. Whave forms public-private partnerships with local government, professionalizing services through upskilling and performance payment of local technicians. Water sources maintained by Whave have consistently experienced greater than 98% full-functionality over the past seven years. Since its inception in 2011, Whave has established service agreements in over 400 communities, guaranteeing reliable water access to over 100,000 people. It has built a staff of 60 full-time employees, of which 57 are Ugandan nationals.
Modes of Operation
Whave works in two capacities, as a demonstrative model of reliable rural water service provision and as an advocacy body.
As a service provider; Whave demonstrates and benchmarks preventive maintenance service delivery, using a sustainable model financed by tariff revenue collected from consumers.
As an advocacy body; Whave generates awareness of the absence of maintenance structures causing more than half the rural population to lack access to reliable safe water, despite investment in improved technologies. Whave works with the aid community and government to establish and implement performance contracts for maintenance service providers which assure rural communities of consistent and professionalized water service delivery, regulated by government.
Whave has signed with government public private partnerships in · l four districts: Kamuli, Nakaseke, Kumi, and Mityana. New partnerships are being developed in further districts.