AASU Family Strengthening Program
AASU believes in family as a key aspect for social protection and development of the children. All our programs are geared towards ensuring stability of families for self-reliance and sustainable community development.
Our work seeks to ensure that family ties remain intact for children to enable belong and thrive in the very dynamic societies.
Family is the fundamental group of society and the natural environment for the growth, well-being and protection of children.
The AASU FinKib program:
At AASU we believe in helping people to help themselves. Our priority is to establish sustainable avenues that promote independence and self-reliance among families. In our area of operation, women take the primary role of caring for children and therefore our community appraisal assessment indicated the need for the women further be empowered for self-reliance and wellbeing of their families.
The Finnkibu program specifically empowers women with tailoring skills to make several fashion and fabric that is consumable on the world market. Women make garments from typically African fabric and they either make random fashions or special orders as requested by clients.
The garments are manufactured on a large scale and some are sold on the local market while others are for the international market. The proceeds are collected every month and shared among the ladies. We have a total number of 60 ladies who are directly benefiting from the Finnkibu program, and since they joined the program their lives have not remained the same. They have managed to establish family businesses, pay school fees for their children, and have generally improved their standards of living.
Grab yourself a garment to support the livelihoods of the rural women in the Kibuye community.
Visit the Finnkibu store: https://www.finnkibu.fi
Community Based Foster care Program:
This program was founded as a response and remedy to the ever increasing number of children who are relinquishing into children’s homes / orphanages. The Kamuli is one of the Districts with high rates of vulnerable children in Uganda. Such vulnerabilities among others include early pregnancies, dropping out of school and children separating from their families.
As such Arise and Shine Uganda has worked with Kamuli District local Government and other partners to identify and prepare prospective foster parents that would rather provide care for the separated children on a short and long term basis.
In our community based foster care program, we have managed to identify and train 30 prospective foster parents in the Kagumba and Kibuye. We have so far had 11 children placed in foster care and through the program we have supported 22 others to transition back to their birth families or at least their kinship/relative families.
Foster care is typically provided as temporary arrangement for children who cannot immediately go back to their families or those that are finding difficulties living with their parents.
Repurposing the AASU Children’s Home:
It should be noted that AASU was originally managing a children’s home however, after undergoing a series of trainings and interaction with global movers of transition to family based care programs, we realised how important it is to create an opportunity for separated children to grow up in family. This prompted us to consider repurposing by tracing the families of all the children that were under our care by then and reintegrating them. Those who could not be immediately reintegrated were placed into foster care.