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BY RICHARD DRASIMAKU
TEREGO: Saturday, August 1, 2026
In 2022, officials from the Uriama Seff Empowerment Foundation visited Odoa village in Ejoni parish, Uriama sub-county, looking for girls in senior four in order to support them.
To their surprise none of the girls in the entire village had reached with education as high as that level. They lowered their such threshold to Senior one and only one girl, Jackeline Ayikoru by then struggling with lack of school fees in S.2 was found. Then the search was lowered down to P.5 and that was when another girl was found to receive support from the local philanthropic organization.
Ben Anguma, the Chief Executive Officer of USEF said the bizarre situation that was largely driven by high rate of poverty forced him to engage the village local council chairman with whom they moved home to home, telling people to send their girls to school.
After rounding up the village, some families were sampled for support and Ayikoru and her mother, Joyce Bako were given one pig each plus seeds of pigeon peas and 500 seedlings of eggplants.
Thus began the transformation journey of the family. Although Ayikoru’s pig died, her mother’s grew big enough to be eventually sold at sh210,000 which was combined with proceeds from the eggplant sale to clear her school fees. The pigeon peas were eaten to improve family diet.
Bako acquired a goat which catered for the school fees for the following year and she bought additional two pigs from selling subsequent egg plants at Itejoa, a daily rural market in the neighbouring Nderea village.
This is how Bako was able to support her daughter’s education up to a nursery teachers’ training that she is pursuing at a school in Oli, Arua Centra Division.
Such are the life-changing experiences emanating from the USEF activities that girls like Judith Angufiru of Lini primary school are now exuding with confidence that their dream of becoming a nurse could become achievable.
Having been mobilized into a 14-member group by USEF three years ago and given a grinding mill, the girls worked tirelessly and saved profits from grinding cassava flour for one year.
In the interim, another organization came and added onion for the group to grow. Unfortunately, that organization recruited a trick-star as a community-based facilitator (CBF) that when the onions matured and were harvested, the CBF took all of it to sell to Omia Agribusiness group and vanished with the money.
The girls got more support from USEF in form of eggplants which mainly catered for the dietary needs of their families as some of it was sold to buy necessities like salt, soap, paste and cooking oil, beans and mukene fish.
After one year, the girls bought 12 goats using savings from the grinding mill and shared the goats among 12 group members while the two who missed out on goats sold the grinding mill and shared the money.
Angufiru’s goat aborted twice and then gave birth to twins two times that as she pursues her education dreams at P.7 at Lini Primary school, she has five goats being looked after by her brother and her father.
She credits USEF for the life orientation lessons that enabled her to shun the dreaded night market and disco rocking Abiribani that is said to have contributed to the high dropout rate and teenage pregnancies in the area.
USEF’s Unique approach
Anguma said what has enabled USEF to hit some success has been the unique approach tagged to community sensitization at family level.
In the life-skills orientation sessions that target orphans and teenage mothers, surviving parents are involved together with the vulnerable girls. One of the key activities is guiding each household to take stock of their state of housing, food security status, sanitation and education levels at the time of first interface; develop visions for the immediate future and set goals to reach the vision.
Accordingly, in Olimoo village in Otumbari parish, Uriama sub county, Ronald Juruga siting side-by-side with his spouse Beatrice Oyeru, narrated the moment his village was summoned for the life orientation talks.
Juruga was all smiles as he recalled the surprise phone call from Anguma in 2022.
In their conversation, Anguma briefed Juruga about an impeding community sensitization meant to open their eyes to move out of poverty methodically.
His reaction was to dash to Bernard Afeti, his immediate neighbor, with whom they mobilized the village members to attend the training.
After that meeting, the participants were given a plethora of quick maturing crops to not only provide food security but also introduce them to commercial agriculture.
The crops included egg plants, tomatoes, pigeon peas, pawpaw, citrus, lemon, brother heart, jackfruits and seedlings of eucalyptus, teak, grevillea and gemalena.
Eventually some families were given pigs and chicken as quick remedies to the appalling state of poverty and also to arouse their entrepreneurial potential.
Fast-forward to 2026, Juruga is a relaxed man who can point to some notable achievements that have placed his family in a prime state to leap out of abject impoverishment.
“The egg plants and tomatoes have helped us to raise a four-roomed wall of 5m x 8m up to the beam level,” he disclosed.
His animal pen has six sheep and four goats all of which are said to be acquired from proceeds from the vegetable seeds provided by USEF. He already has 24 iron sheets and is planning to buy ten more to roof the house to fulfil the family vision developed at the maiden sensitization organized by USEF.
For Bernard Afeti, his vision was to buy pigs, goats, cattle, build a permanent house, buy a motorcycle and feed the family well and meet essential demands such as school fees, health and clothing.
“I had a rough idea to build a home but the training sensitization by USEF helped me to refine that vision,” he said.
Afeti testified that his family has made impressive strides in that in the three years of working with USEF, he has constructed his dream house that is awaiting plastering, he moved from bicycle to motorcycle and he has seven pigs, fourteen sheep and six goats.
What is yet elusive is the cows whose acquisition may not be far-fetched and 300 Kuroiler chicken that he hopes to fulfil when the new project on the horizon – the growing of cocoa takes off.
To upscale their reach and impact, USEF recruited a life skills master trainer, Alice Komugisa, to spearhead the community engagement.
With support from Haella Foundation- Northern Uganda Family, she developed 18 lessons that she has been giving to families in Bileafe, Uriama and Katrini sub counties.
The choice of location was based on information from the Tergo district community development department which showed staggeringly disturbing statistics of teenage pregnancies in Bileafe sub county.
Targeting 45 teenage mothers and their families for one year, Komugisa has reported an overwhelming demand that in Anikuru village in Adripi parish, Bileafe sub county alone the entire target for Terego district was surpassed in that 63 families with teenage mothers turned up for the orientation sessions.
Most of the teenage mothers who attend the lessons reported that prior to the intervention, they tried to rejoin school after delivery of their babies but were met with stigma at school and negative attitude at home.
Now, the Komugisa led project is aiming to prevent and reduce teenage pregnancies and ensure re-enrolment of the girls to continue their education after six months of nursing their babies without encumbrances.
As part of the effort, parent support centers have been established to contribute towards ending all forms of discrimination and gender-based violence against teenage girls.
This too was informed by the alarming information disclosed by the Terego district community services department.
To combat this vice, Komugisa’s lessons tackle mindset change, positive parenting skills, peace, human rights, counselling and psychosocial support.
“Five girls have gone back to school and are reporting good progress with studies while leaving their babies with their parents at home,” said Komugisa.
“One of the girls is in P.7 at Liria primary school and we expect a good result from her,” she added.
Komugisa thanked Haella Foundation for their support and expressed USEF’s commitment to ensure diligence and dedication during the implementation of the one-year project.
