Child Soldiers in Africa
The experience of
Empowering
Hands in
Northern
Uganda
www.empowering hands.com
1
BACKGROUND
Empowering hands is an NGO founded in
2004 by a group of 36 young women who
returned from LRA captivity with the goal
to ease return and reintegration of
Formerly Abducted Persons (FAP) in
Northern Uganda through active
participation in rebuilding peace and
livelihoods.
The Vision
The vision of Empowering hands is to
see peace prevail in whole of Northern
Uganda where the entire population is
living a happy and healthy life
The Mission
working for change in the condition and
the lives of the people who have been
affected by the LRA conflict through
counseling, promoting dialogue among
returnees and communities, supporting
income generation activities of the affected
population.
Partnership
EH have been supported by:
QPSW, United Kingdom
 UNICEF
 The Uganda Fund for War Affected
Children and Youth
 In 2007 EH received the Women of the
Year Award from GLAMOUR Magazine
New York

Program focus
The program focus of empowering hands is
to make the lives of the returnees and
other communities normalized through:
• Psychosocial support
• Livelihood support
• Peace building and
• Human rights awareness & advocacy
Magnitude of the challenge
An estimated 30,000 children in Uganda
were abducted by the Lord’s Resistance
Amy (LRA)
2. EH is the only NGO that continues to
work to support reintegration of formerly
abducted people (FAP)
3. EH has reached 1000 former child soldier
4. Amnesty Commission has reintegrated
only 5,324 FAP
1.
Current situation of former child soldiers…
Some child soldiers still face rejection by
own spouse, family and communities
because of wrong perceptions (personality,
demonic, etc )
2. Separation of families or members
3. Single parenting and/unwanted children
4. Joblessness due to lack of skills since they
were abducted when they were still very
young and missed out on education
5. Traumatized because some children were
forced to kill while others witnessed killing
and other atrocities
1.
…Current situation of former child soldiers
6. Self and imposed stigmatization and name
calling such as ‘KONY, OTOTONG,
LAKWENA’ by the community because of
the wrong perception
7. Child-headed households and increased
domestic responsibilities for returnee child
soldiers for siblings whose parents died
8. Many child soldiers faced land grabbing or
denial from extended families
9. Physical trauma from bullet wounds,
diseases, etc remain untreated
Interventions by EH ….
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Empowering hands has concentrated its effort on five
core thematic areas: 1) psychosocial counseling, 2)
peace building, 3) human rights promotion, 4)
livelihood enhancement and 5) organizational
development.
Trained FAPs in various livelihood skills including:
agri-business, financial management, etc to enable
them start a normal life in the community
Provision of start-up loan fund on revolving fund basis
for IGA (Average $150)
Established Peer Support and Community Dialogue
Groups in 20 areas of operation at Sub-county levels
Conducted peace campaign through radio talk shows,
Dance, Drama and Music
…. . Interventions by EH
Conduct inter family
conflict resolution,
dialogue meetings,
etc between
returnees and
communities
• Train members in
organizational
development,
computer literacy,
etc.
•
Project Interventions
Provision of oxen and
plough to enable
FAP scale up
subsistence farming
to eradicate
poverty.
Land opening which
presents a big
challenge to food
security of FAPs
CHALLENGES
– Funding: lack of attention to the needs of waraffected populations after the conflict is over, resulting
in limited outreach to FAP in Northern Uganda
– Limited staffing: only two technical staff recruited to
manage the implementation of the project activities
– Severe trauma: among EH members and in the
communities
– Low literacy levels of FAP and EHs members
– Lack of office equipment’s such as computers, camera,
and transport to implement program activities
– High demand and expectation from groups we are
working with i.e. the Community Dialogue Groups
and the Peer Support Groups
The SOLUTIONS
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Fundraising through proposal writing to potential
donors
Capacity building of EHs members and field staff
Documentation of the plight of victims for
recognition and support
Networking with government and partners in
development (ACTTV and AYINET) to support
the treatment of victims
Economic empowerment through seed capital –
loans and grants
Follow up of cases for further interventions
BEST PRACTICES
Involving FAPs, Local leaders and the
communities in the implementation of
project activities for follow up &
ownership
 Collaborating with other stakeholders in
the identifications of genuine beneficiaries
 Active participation of EHs members in
field work activities
 Coordinating and reporting to donors
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LESSON LEARNT
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Coordinate / complement our activities according to the
government programmes
Adapt models according to the concern of the communities
especially during emergency period.
No one method of dealing with trauma is sufficient but other
means such as traditional cleansing, therapeutic counseling
are also important and complementary
involving returnees in decision making on the issues
concerning them was very paramount
psychosocial counseling is not a one day thing but should be
continuous for complete healing from trauma
Hands-on jobs such as tailoring, carpentry and building
artisan skills and farming are easily learnt to create jobs for
FAPs
Linkages to job creation in Africa
Capacity building /training in various skills
like vocational, agro business and financial
management skills etc.
• Provision of technical assistance like
collective marketing and networking
• An economic development strategy that
focus on rebuilding local economies by
providing simple financial services for job
creation and self employment
• Promote self employment in agriculture to
benefit food security, economic gains and the
community at large
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THE CHALLENGES TO THE JOB
CREATION
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Donor funding for development are limited compared to
emergency programs
Some donor policies do not favor community needs. For
instance undue restriction where and how funding should be
used
Inadequate knowledge and skills in business
The government policies towards job creation mostly favors
the highly educated and much less the lowliest
Environmental factors that do not favor farming e.g. Uganda
depends on rain-fed agriculture
Inadequate materials and equipment's for agricultural
activities and also for the vocational skills like sawing
machines and others
Limited or restricted markets for the local products
THE SOLUTION
The government should develop all other
sectors like agricultural, and trade by
encouraging labor intensive technology
 Governments and donors should conduct
reliable baseline surveys to identify specific
people and community needs
• Train and encourage entrepreneur skills and
other creativity

THANK YOU
AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK
GROUP
“It’s important for the young people they
help to know they’re not alone—and can
have hope.” —Ann M.Veneman, Executive
Director, UNICEF