The Issues

Our Impact

Health Care

When Give Us Wings arrived in Nyaoga, Kenya and Kayoro, Uganda, we found communities struggling to survive. Both communities are isolated and there were no medical clinics within walking distance. As a result, people weren’t able to access health care. Children weren’t given immunizations, mothers-to-be did not receive pre-natal care and they delivered their babies at home. The people were suffering from a variety of diseases and conditions including, malaria, typhoid, HIV/AIDS, hookworm and schitotosomiasis, to name a few. The poor health of the people made it difficult for men and women to go to work to support their families and for the children to attend school. The well-being of the communities was being threatened because there was no health care available.

Build Clinics and Community Outreach

Waiting at the clinic cropped

Give Us Wings built two clinics. One in rural Kenya on the shores of Lake Victoria and the other in rural Uganda. For the first several years that Give Us Wings worked in these communities, we would hold health camps. People from the community and far beyond would wait in lines for hours to be seen by the medical professionals who had volunteered their services. Give Us Wings staff met with the members of community-based groups in the villages and discussed with them how best to improve the health of their communities. The group members agreed that they needed local clinics that would provide affordable, quality health care.

Read about our impact on health care

Education

Children are often forced to leave school before they complete their primary education. In order to attend school in Kenya and Uganda, a child’s family must pay school fees and purchase uniforms, shoes and school supplies. If the family is unable to pay, the children are chased away from school. Very poor families are often able to send only one or two of their children to school. In those situations, the family usually decides to send the sons to school. Poor families often arrange for their daughters to be married at a young age, thereby ending their schooling or if the girls become pregnant they are forced to leave school. The lack of education results in a myriad of problems. People who lack education earn less money to support their families and they are less likely to seek medical treatment for themselves and their children.

Provide Educational Opportunities

KidsWaitingOutsideSchool

Give Us Wings constructed the Lake Victoria Young Women's Academy in Nyaoga, Kenya. The Academy is designed to accommodate young women and their pre-school aged children so that the women can complete their primary education.

The Family to Family Sponsorship Program in Uganda focuses on helping students get a high quality education and provides support to the entire family. Children are more likely to succeed in school if they are living in a stable, nurturing environment that supports them. Our program applies a holistic approach to help the whole family succeed.

Read about our impact on Education

Economic Sustainability

Most people living in these communities are subsistence farmers, often not raising enough to adequately feed their families. They did not have the resources to improve their output and lacked training in organic farming techniques that produce more nutritious crops. Many people were interested in starting or expanding their small businesses to better support their families, but they had no business training or money to do so. The lack of training and money to start new businesses made it virtually impossible for the families in these communities to work their way out of poverty.

Business training and mentoring for groups and Cooperatives

EconomicSustainability

Give Us Wings' Entrepreneurial and Livelihoods Development Program (ELD) is designed to help end poverty, improve nutrition and food security and promote sustainable agriculture. Our focus, although not exclusively, is on helping women and girls achieve gender equality and become economically empowered. Ultimately, ELD is designed to promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth for our partners.

Read about our impact on Economic Sustainability