...let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. ( 1John 3:18)  and provide New Possibilities for a Dignified life for all Rural Women and Children

ALFA REHABILITATION AND EMPOWERMENT CENTRE 
An opportunity for adolescent girls/young women to earn a livelihood!

The worsening social and economic situation in the rural areas is being exploited by traffickers. More and more adolescent girls and young single mothers have been lured into prostitution in the city and big towns in the hope of a better life. However, big cities have often made these poor adolescent girls/young single mothers even poorer and vulnerable to abuse and violence – let alone the STD/HIV/AIDS risks.

The trafficking of the rural adolescent girls/young women of Mpigi district to the City and towns has become a mortal danger because of the high incidence of HIV-AIDS infection among those who find their ways back to their home villages. HIV-AIDS in Uganda has proved to be, "far more dangerous than female genital mutilation."  

A growing number of rural women's groups in Mpigi district argue that the risk to society from trafficking is so great that the personal wishes of their adolescent girls/young women must take second place behind the over-riding need to stamp the trade. Besides, they say, choosing to enter forced prostitution is hardly exercising one's right to chose. "If our girls and young women were empowered, they would not let themselves be trafficked."   

And, working closely together with rural community based women groups, ALFA Ministries has developed a ‘Women’s Rehabilitation and Empowerment Centre’ which is a Community Vocational Training and Rehabilitation Centre for adolescent girls and young single mothers who have been subjected to sexual abuse and violence so that they can acquire skills as a means of earning a living in the countryside. Here more than 20 adolescent girls/young single mothers will be rehabilitated and trained in different income generating trades—such as dress making and hand crafts. It is our hope that the 20 pioneer girls/young single mothers will pass through the center with a micro-loan and go on to live a dignified life through their own small businesses. In this way, there is an opportunity for them to earn a livelihood and remain in their villages.
 
The Centre’s Aim:
 


 

 To morally rehabilitate adolescent girls/young women, train them in income generating enterprises, create job opportunities and improve their social and economic status/standards as a means of reducing the STD/HIV/AIDS transmission and HIV/AIDS related morbidity and mortality  – thus making them self-supporting. 
The Center’s Goals:

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To recruit, initiate a rehabilitation process for adolescent girls/young single mothers who have been in prostitution through counselling,  and train the target group and clients in safe sex practices through education and provision of condoms.

To initiate supportive peer groups among adult women who will be involved in counseling young women in the sex trade in Mpigi District.

To empower sufficient number of motivated peer groups and all project members covered by membership of peer group system through training. 

To recruit adolescent girls/young women (especially school drop-outs who have been victims of trafficking) in Mpigi District to be trained and attain strengthened vocational skills – especially in tailoring. 

Training adolescent girls/young women in market survey techniques, customer relations, simple stock taking procedures and financial management.

Providing loans or assistance that is given to individuals or groups to start a dress-making business, a carpentry workshop, livestock rearing, poultry keeping, plantations or small workshops etc.