Project information

In total there will be 15 University of Manchester students (including an Assistant Project Leader) volunteering alongside 8 Ugandan volunteers (incuding a Ugandan Assistant Project Leader). 

This year, there will be three sub team projects. Each team will focus on a different area of inequality highlighted by the sustainable development goals that relates to S.A.L.V.E.’s work:

• Gender equality
• Climate action
• Addiction, health and well-being

The teams will work in communities that Team Uganda has worked in in the past and will identify problems faced by children living on the streets and the community as a whole. They will hold community events where different groups can come together to share their ideas. They will each also spend time with children living on the streets to hear on their views on the topics.

The aim of the projects is for communities to come up with meaningful replicable actions around their topic area. The team will then develop, test out the ideas and evaluate their success. They will make recommendations for S.A.LV.E. and the communities to take forwards.

The Gender Equality Team:

This team will volunteer in a community where many street-connected girls stay who are out of school. They will spend some time in the new S.A.L.V.E. Girls Drop in Centre and will speak to young people as well as local organisations, schools and community members identifying issues faced, such as teen pregnancy, early marriage and school drop out. The ideas for small scale replicable actions might include awareness raising events or community discussions or dramas.

The Climate Action Team: 

This team will look at how a community has been, and is likely to increasingly be, affected by climate change. They will discuss ideas with the community around what can be done to reduce the impact of climate change with a particular focus on permaculture, waste management and recycling. Examples of potential actions include raising awareness of organic farming, increasing recycling using the S.A.L.V.E. briquettes social enterprise as an example, or reducing the use of single use plastics.

The Addiction, Health and Wellbeing Team: 

This team will be looking at the causes and effects of drug misuse within a community. They will be asking how the community can work together to reduce the use and harm caused by drugs, and to create more open dialogue around the impact of addiction. With the help of the Drug Rehab team, they will go to previously visited schools and organisations. The actions the team come up with could be around awareness raising or further debate and action to inform the S.A.L.V.E. peer to peer addiction education programme.

Holiday camps

All members of Team Uganda will also jointly contribute to running a holiday camp for the young people in S.A.L.V.E.’s educational support. The camp is for children who were formerly on the streets to help them to develop their knowledge, skills and talents. It will be creative and enjoyable as well as a platform for learning. Some ideas for the holiday camp could include (but are not limited to):

• Teaching sessions
• Sports training and tournaments
• Improving numeracy and literacy
• Arts and crafts
• Music, dance and drama
• Science (practical experiments to bring it to life)
• IT – Building on skills and knowledge from the 2015 IT project
• Skill building – i.e. making plastic bottle gardens

The team will be working alongside Ugandan volunteers in the planning and delivery of camp activities and the in-depth counselling elements of the camp will be run by members of S.A.L.V.E.’s Ugandan team.

By running this project we hope to achieve results that last beyond the lifespan of the project and help to ensure that S.A.L.V.E.’s work can have even greater impact in providing opportunities for young people to leave the streets of Uganda.