And a 2010 Amnesty International report shows, between January and June 2009, there was only a 1.83 per cent conviction rate for rape and a 5.89 per cent conviction rate for defilement cases. Defilement is the all-too-tidy euphemism used in Uganda for sexual molestation.

How do you even begin to inject hope and change into a society with those kind of horrific human rights odds? Among many other strategies, we empower the women and unleash the full legal power of attorneys like Ugandan’s Rose Nsenge, a strong ally in our Project Justice program.

For eight years, Rose has proven that “I’ll do anything to help anybody as long as it’s within my power! When I feel justice has to be done, I’m not going to eat. I’m not going to sleep.  I will make sure I follow each task until the very last conclusion.  I don’t mind having sleepless nights if, in the end, I get justice.”

Working closely with legal authorities, Rose helped mobilize our St. Kizito community, identified the headmaster who’d assaulted the girls, and got him arrested. After serving some time, he was released for lack of evidence (all-too common in Uganda). But he was run out of the community – for good. As importantly, Rose sees people in the community rising up with their own sense of empowerment. “Now when we return to St. Kizito we ask, ‘Where are the children?’ And they are in school. And the majority of women? They are making decisions and holding positions in the community.  They are more vigilant about protecting the children.”

A 29-year-old mother of two, Rose grew up in the slums of Kampala. She became outraged when she saw how she and other children had no voices in her culture, even when they were abused or treated as property. Now, she’s an attorney making waves across Africa. Her husband, also an attorney, supports her professional leadership.

Under our Project Justice umbrella, Rose trains paralegals, police officers, social workers, medical personnel, and families in more than 50 communities in rural Uganda about their rights, the need for justice, and how to seek it. She’s made a name for herself throughout Uganda as a legal lightning rod. Rose was the first attorney on the scene when a horrific human rights abuse from Uganda rocked the globe. It’s beyond the pale, but in 2009 it was discovered that a rural Ugandan man had forced his wife to breastfeed puppies for years.

“My role was to initiate, mobilize, and call for action from fellow women activists to travel and visit the woman, who lived about 100 km away from Kampala. I led a team of about 14 women activists to seek justice for her.”

The man, who felt justified in abusing his wife in this manner because he’d paid a “bride price” for her, was arrested, but not prosecuted.

“I have been following up on this case, trying to see to it that this poor woman gets justice.” Rose says. “Actionaid Uganda got the woman funding, and they managed to build for her a house, however, the man is still at large, and up to now, he has never been charged. The case is currently before The Uganda Human Rights Commission. I will work to see that this woman will get justice one day. I think I was the determination and courage to move this case. It might be a matter of time, days, months, but the woman will get justice one day.”

Disease won’t change, poverty won’t change, and illiteracy won’t change—until access to justice increases.

For centuries, Ugandan women and girls have been forced to meekly kneel before men. We are so proud of Nyiraguhabwa Monica, who is teaching our girls to stand proud and treat themselves with the greatest respect.

Monica is helping girls embrace life skills and empowered choices that will help them navigate the rest of their lives. Monica designs and leads our Girl Power workshops, which teach hundreds of young women that they have the right to live their lives without being harassed, exploited, or hurt. And that they can choose to attend school or work without persecution.

Monica’s work couldn’t be more urgent. Save the Children estimates that two children each hour are defiled in Uganda.

One of Just Like My Child’s students was raped and impregnated. The rapist’s family tried to “erase” the abuse by giving the child’s family a cow — and her family accepted it as the only kind of justice available to them.

Vivian Glyck knew in that moment that she had to launch a program that would strengthen, protect, and empower future girls, and convinced Monica to train hundreds of girls ages 9 to 13 via the Girl Power Project. Those girls now are becoming more confident and bold, knowing THEY may be Uganda’s next leaders.

We live for those days when the girls say things like, “I discovered ways of building my self esteem” or “I unlearned the mentality that men are stronger than women!”

Thank you Monica, for making the Girl Power Project a force with which to be reckoned! Monica will be joining us remotely from Uganda for our Hand Up, Never a Handout Celebration!

Join us October 13 for an unforgettable evening of hope, inspiration, education and FUN!!

We went to many of the holiest cities in the North, including Rishikesh made famous by The Beatles. They wrote many songs during the brief time they were there, including “Why Don’t We Do It In The Road,” – a paean to the many monkeys who do whatever they want “in the road.” We also traveled to Haridwar, and to the ultimate in overwhelming Indian chaos: Varanasi.

Varanasi is famous for its “burning ghats” – funeral pyres along the banks of the River Ganges where holy pilgrims come to die so they can have their ashes released in the Holy (and dirty) Ganges.

It is fantastically surreal and challenges everything we think we know about death, spirit, and the importance of a sanitary environment.

Throughout India, men who have taken a vow of poverty to pursue spiritual transcendence are revered as a national treasure – the soul of India’s collective body.

But my most spiritual moment did not come in the presence of a Holy Sadhu, but rather through the radiance of a simple woman who had likely spent her entire life’s savings to travel to Varanasi. On this day, she joined tens of thousands of women on the banks of the Ganges for “Women’s Day” – a holy day to celebrate motherhood and the power of the feminine.

When I met her, she was freshly bathed in the Ganges, her head just shaved as she offered the only thing of value she owned to the river of life – her beautiful hair.  In her eyes, I saw deep serenity; radiance and oneness that resulted from her pilgrimage and sacrifice.

The buoyancy of her spirit was so large and happy that I imagined she was taller than me as I posed by her to take a photo. I was stunned when I looked at my photos later that night and realized that I dwarfed her by nearly a foot!

She is the spirit that I conjure up each day when I bring attention to my own spiritual core. I won’t leave my yoga practice until I bow to the full radiance of her feminine power.

She is the spirit that I bring to our Project Justice work and our Girl Power Project: fully maternal, fully fierce, fully loving, fully healing. This spirit can, will, and has healed the planet.

On Thursday, October 13, at our fifth annual gala, we will pay homage to this fierce and healing feminine essence as we honor three amazing women who sacrifice and love every day in order to bring joy and empowerment to others. Read below about one of our amazing honorees: Monica Nyiraguhabwa, leader of our Girl Power Project. She is power and grace in action!

Please join us for a Hand Up, Never a Hand Out.

Namaste!

Nearly 30% of her neighbors were infected with HIV, she was surrounded by dozens of orphans, and she was going to a school that had no books and barely a roof on the structure.

Recognizing her intelligence and drive, Just Like My Child Foundation, through the generous help of one donor, Jim K., began sponsoring Nalubombwe at one of the best elementary schools in Uganda.

Flash forward four years: Nalubombwe excelled so far in school and scored so well on her end of term exams that she was just accepted into THE best high school in all of Uganda.

Left to Right: Nalubombwe’s mother, Namagembe Topista, Nalubombwe Josephine, Tessa Davis

It’s almost incomprehensible to the residents of her village, Kikoiiro that a girl born into such a dim reality could be walking into the brightest future possible.

Thank you Nalubombwe for all of your very hard work to make this happen!

And thank you, Jim, for believing that the fire of knowledge can change the world. To be like Jim click here.

Please start a dialogue with us by commenting on the stories. We want to know what you think and what’s important to you!

Here are a few comments made by the girls:

• I gained self Confidence
• I discovered ways of building my self esteem.
• I learnt how to make wise decisions.
• With disappointments you can still move on.
• I unlearned the mentality that men are stronger than women

Don’t get me wrong we still have so much work that needs to be done, but this a really wonderful first step.

Monica’s report states the following:

“The emphasis in the training is put on the social survival skills since the young women in Uganda are living in an environment that does not respect their rights and thus the girl child is very vulnerable. For example, 86.9 percent of rape victims in Uganda are between the ages of 9 and 17 and Uganda has the highest percentage of teenage pregnancy in sub Saharan Africa. Therefore the empowerment training is spot on as it aims to empower the young women to protect themselves in the different environment, which do not respect their rights.

“Namumira Primary Schools is one of the schools that has benefited from Just Like My Child who put up classroom structures to ensure that both girls and boys get access to education in a clean and safe learning environment. JLMC went further to introduce the girl power project where 40 girls benefited form the mentoring training in 2010.  The two-day training focused on social survival skills, the power of social intelligence, peer pressure, communication skills, puberty and the menstruation cycle.

“Therefore a year after the training, Just Like My Child returned to the school to conduct an evaluation. This exercise was meant to identify the emerging issues, check on the progress of the girls in their individual lives and how they have been able to use the knowledge that they acquired in the two-day training.

“… the young women from the follow-up empowerment workshops have gained self-confidence, learned to deal with troubling situations, built self esteem, learned to choose friends wisely, unlearned the mentality that men are stronger than women, how to make a wise decisions, and that their facial expressions communicate what they felt. Overall, the analysis of the entire process of the evaluation proved significant and the trainees had ‘acquired knowledge about the various issues facilitated to them and thus were able to add value to their own lives.’ “

Learn more about The Girl Power Project by clicking here. To make your contribution to empower girls and women in Uganda, donate here.

FIDA Workshop

It started when almost every school girl in the group raised their hands when asked if they had ever experienced sexual abuse by an adult.  The numbers were surprising – nearly 15!  Even more shocking was the identity of the accused assailant – a teacher in their school!

Since that day the Just Like My Child staff has been persistent and relentless in getting justice for the girls by enlisting the help of a team of women Ugandan attorneys.  The teacher from this very rural community called St. Kizito was arrested and although he is now out on bail, his life will never be the same.  His community is not only aware of what he has done they are finally acknowledging the rights of their children.

The FIDA attorneys brought an international news reporter and photographer and television reporter with them to St. Kizito.  They made a tremendous impression on the community!  We were able to share information about the Project Justice training which was aired that night on local television.

From the perspective of our in-country staff, it appears the community is really opening up about this particular arrest and they gave their true opinions.  Some of men who were very supportive of the teacher in the beginning (and were actually heckling attorneys in the beginning of the meeting) changed their tune and went on the news camera to say so.

The women in the community came to the attorneys in private, and told them “thank you so much for what you are doing we have been suffering in this community for a long time.”  This is really going to bring a spotlight on this issue in Uganda, as I’m sure this community is only one of many like this.  The attorneys were really shocked by the attitudes of some members of the community and the lack of knowledge about defilement.  They also got more evidence against the teacher and met with the State Attorney and Police again, which is great news! The lawyers are really on fire about continuing to help this community.

The attorneys want to go back as soon as possible to do training with the children only, which they feel is the most crucial thing now. The international photographer was really touched by the girls and agreed to this story with others outside of Uganda.

This is such powerful news for the future of girls in Uganda.  The more attention the arrest gets in the media and within the communities, the more the attitudes about defilement will change.

Through our Project Justice program, we are doing everything we can within the communities.  We provide a comprehensive human rights education program in partnership with the attorneys so that hospital staff, community members and local legal authorities can protect the rights of women and children in Uganda.

If you share Just Like My Child’s passion for protecting the rights of children, please support our efforts with a tax-deductible donation here https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=26195&Itemid=108

From Left to Right: Program Director, Tessa Davis; Country Director, Dena Lewerke; Founder, Vivian Glyck; Operations Coordinator, Ruthie Espanol.

1) The Girl Power Project – Betty was a very little girl, going to a dilapidated school deep in the bush of Uganda when she was sexually assaulted by her teacher – the very person she was supposed to learn from and trust!

This year we came to Betty’s school to engage her in The Girl Power Project — our empowerment/life skills training program aimed at girls just like her. Finally she had a chance, together with her friends who had also been abused, to tell her story and have a chance at JUSTICE. As a result, the teacher was arrested!

2) Project Keep a Mother Alive – This year, the Just Like My Child Operating Theater at Asili Hospital was finally complete. The committed surgeons and staff are now saving the lives of many mothers and children. Today, dire, tragic stories of women dying in childbirth at the hospital have been replaced with countless happy endings!

3) We’re becoming experts! In 2008, together with a zealous community of parents, we began working on our first primary school. It took over eight months to build the school, and although everyone worked very hard, the process seemed to take forever. A few things have changed since then!

Our sixth school will be started in the beginning of 2011, and it’s taking between just three and four months to build a school! Rapid results keep communities motivated, get kids into great facilities sooner, and provides an incentive for the next community that wants a school.

4) Heifer International and JLMC are negotiating a partnership to expand our Project GRACE micro-enterprise program and put hundreds of families in business! We’ve got to raise $50,000 before we can give the partnership a “go”, but that’s never stopped us, and we’re so proud to be invited by Heifer to take part in a project together!

5) Our Team! Just Like My Child’s growing team of Americans and Ugandans are helping to build capacity and move our projects forward in Uganda. I’m constantly amazed and gratified at the caliber and vision of our team to mobilize entire communities to lift themselves up. Go team!

Our plans for 2011 are as ambitious as ever, and there’s so much more work to be done.

You and I both know that the biggest changes begin with the smallest steps. Find out how you can be part of our work.

Click through to watch a short video where I share my story and my reasons for doing this work. I hope it inspires you to recommit yourself to helping others this New Year. I hope you’ll take a minute to think about the impact you want to make in 2011 — then make a contribution. If you’d prefer to send a check rather than donate online, please send to: Just Like My Child Foundation, PO Box 22025, San Diego, CA 92122.

P.S. Just $10 will pay for a coaching program that empowers a girl to stand up for herself; pay for legal training that empowers a woman to use the legal system to fight domestic violence in her home; buy an insecticide-treated bed net to protect up to three children.

$300 will give a family a pair of animals and complete business building training, to build a livestock business.

Would you trade your child’s future for a cow?

That sounds a bit dramatic and unrealistic, right?

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently shared this very true story at a surprise appearance at  TED Women Conference.  A young girl in an underdeveloped country had received a cow as incentive to go to school as part of a special empowering project.  When her father tried to get her to drop out and get married as a teenager, she refused – in part because she had learned enough to know she had rights about her own future.  When her father persisted, she threatened to take her cow with her, and the father conceded to allow her to stay unmarried and in school. The cow was too important to him.

I am sure this story not only gave this girl, but every girl who hears her story, the power to pursue her dreams regardless of their circumstances.

Could you imagine what an affect this sense of empowerment has on a child?  But the far reaching implications of women’s and girl’s empowerment are staggering. As Hillary Clinton explains in her speech, women have the ability to stabilize entire nations’ economies.

“Let women work and they drive economic growth across all sectors. Send a girl to school even just for one year and her income dramatically increases for life, and her children are more likely to survive and her family more likely to be healthier for years to come. Give women equal rights and entire nations are more stable and secure. Deny women equal rights and the instability of nations is almost certain.”

Sometimes I get the questions of “with so many economic issues here in the U.S.  why concentrate on girl’s empowerment in Africa?”  This is a great question and one for which I could speak for hours.  In Hillary Clinton’s talk she said it quite directly:

“…when I talk about why we need to integrate women’s issues into discussions at the highest levels everywhere in the world, I’m not doing it just because I have a personal commitment or because President Obama cares about it. I’m doing it because it’s in the vital interests of the United States of America.”

What happens to children in Africa affects all nations.  Their education, their contribution to their own communities, their ability to stand up for themselves against violence and abuse, and contribute economically  –transforms nations and in turn benefits all economies worldwide.

Just Like My Child has created Project Justice and The Girl Power Project to improve gender and human rights equality in the most impoverished communities in Uganda.

You can make the biggest difference in a girl or woman’s life by helping them protect their rights while they pursue their dreams.   Please support our efforts by donating https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=26195&Itemid=10

To read the full story and watch Hillary Clinton’s video, click here – CNN:  Hillary Clinton: Empower Girls and Women

Here in the U.S. you can’t channel surf without coming across a news information show that is profiling the crimes and punishments of our communities.  One of the redeeming qualities of these shows is they make unlawful acts and the consequences transparent to the community and the nation.  There is no way the acts of an abuser could be swept under the proverbial rug once he or his victim appears in the media.  In essence we rely on public outrage to hold lawmakers accountable for enforcing the law.

So what happens to girls and women who are abused in communities without this level of transparency and education about the law?  Project Justice, and here’s how it all began.

In 2009, I attended The International Colloquium on Women’s Empowerment, Leadership Development, International Peace and Security in Monrovia, Liberia, West Africa. This amazing convention of women’s empowerment activists from around the world inspired me to see what is truly possible when women are given a voice.

I shared the following stories and asked several Udandan attorneys and mentoring professionals from the conference for their help…

One of our sponsorship girls was home from school break when she was raped and impregnated at 13-years of age.  The family didn’t know where to turn, or how to press charges. The only way they knew to settle the issue was to accept a cow from the assailant’s family– in essence the family exchanged the young girl’s innocence and the subsequent child born for the value of a cow.  That’s unimaginable to us.

Another story that mobilized us to find a solution was that of a woman whose drunken husband was so angry at her for wanting to take their child to the clinic he attacked her with a machete, almost decapitating her.  After she was treated at the hospital, the only place for her to go was back home – the place where her assailant lived. She didn’t know how to access the justice system to protect her.

The questions I kept asking was “How can anything change if these basic human rights are not protected? How can we prevent human rights abuse so it does not show up in the hospital as a health issue?”

In both of these cases, the laws regarding abuse are in place, but the hospital workers were not trained in legal issues, and police often require a bribe to take action. There is no 24-hour news feed spotlighting these crimes, igniting outrage and holding law enforcement and law makers accountable.

I knew Just Like My Child could engage the communities in Uganda and create a system to enforce the laws to protect women.  I was like a dog with a bone and I would not let go until Project Justice was born.

With the help of the female attorneys I met, our Project Justice program now teaches entire communities about the law: land rights, women and children’s rights. The program also trains hospital staff to become paralegals who know the law and how to enforce it.

At the same time, Project Justice conducts workshops with the lawmakers and police at the local level so that there is a transparency within law enforcement.  When they know the community is educated and is watching them they have to act.

Because of Project Justice the girls and women know there are people on their side; we are building a resource for those who up to this point have not had allies in strong community positions.

It costs just $10 per community member to educate them about their legal rights and how to protect themselves. Imagine the impact this will have on limiting the spread of disease, the ability for women and girls to be an economic force and to raise their children with respect for themselves and the community. When human rights are protected, hope and development can spring forth.

Just Like My Child has ambitious and far-reaching goals for this project over the next three years, but we can’t do it without you. You can make the biggest difference in a child’s or mother’s life by giving them the hope of a compelling future.  Please support our efforts by donating https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=26195&Itemid=10

To read more about Project Justice, click here.

Photo:  JLMC’s Girl Power Project Empowers Girls to Speak Up for Their Rights Even When the Culture Encourages Submissiveness and Silence. Above, girls who have experienced sexual abuse are asked to raise their hands.

86.9 percent of rape victims in Uganda are girls between the ages of 9 and 17.

75 percent of 15 to 24 year-olds living with HIV in Africa are female.

Unfortunately we just learned the truth of these sobering statistics first hand. Thirty beautiful, sensitive girls were brave enough to tell us their story. No child should have to endure what they have. But as horrible as the news was, we’re thrilled to report that our Girl Power Project is making massive headway in rooting out cases of sexual abuse against girls, and empowering entire communities to stand up and protect their children.

Here’s the story:

Our staff in Uganda recently conducted a girls’ empowerment training program at one of the schools we are looking to rebuild. During the course of the training, these timid, often submissive 7 to 12-year-old girls developed the courage to let our staff know that most of them (30 in total) had been defiled by a teacher at their school.  Defilement is the term used for rape of a girl who is under twelve! The rapes took place when the children were in nursery school.

There’s quite a bit to sort out and our heroic staff on the ground is pursuing all of the means available to them. The last two weeks, our staff has been working closely with our team of legal consultants and empowerment experts to leverage the full extent of the law. They’ve conducted interviews with the girls, filed police reports, and met with the community to encourage them to protect their children. This type of legal action is rarely pursued due to corruption, fear and ignorance. But The Girl Power  Project is helping to move human rights issues to the forefront and empower parents and children to fight for what’s right.

In an extraordinary shift in events, the teacher accused of these rapes has been arrested and Just Like My Child is helping to build a case against him.  This case will build huge momentum for our program moving forward.  The girls and the community will hear about this issue, they will be more aware of their rights and most of all they will see that there are legal consequences. This all leads to girls realizing they have a voice, trusting us and speaking up so that we can ensure justice and hope are restored.

It raises our awareness that heinous incidents like this must be happening in the other villages we serve. Our positive momentum in serving justice makes us more committed than ever to spread legal awareness.

Through The Girl Power Project and Project Justice, Just Like My Child will continue to conduct these essential trainings so that the girls know there is a resource for them, and they are empowered to come forward. The more confidence a girl feels, the more she can  demonstrate this in the community.  She learns to  make eye contact and carry herself with a strong presence.  This small difference can be the difference between being a target for abuse and being left alone to have a safe childhood.

Please support our specialized programs by making a donation.  https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=26195&Itemid=10