HIV Prevention Program Helps Struggling Family
Get Back on its Feet

Joyce, a 42-year-old second wife in a polygamous family, was abandoned when her husband married a third wife. Left with no rights to the family's property and no support from her husband, Joyce could no longer provide for their five children. As a result, her children were forced to drop out of school to work in other people's gardens for food and money to meet their basic needs. Joyce worried that her young daughters would be vulnerable to early marriage and heightened risk of exposure to HIV.

A jovial Joyce (left) with a newborn goat that she received with the help of her BUCAI community volunteer.

Life took a turn for the better for Joyce’s family when she heard about the Buseta Community AIDS Initiative (BUCAI)—a community-based organization (CBO) supported by Bantwana through its Civil Society Fund (CSF) project. CSF was designed to promote the well-being of orphans and other vulnerable children (OVC) and their caregivers through access to comprehensive services that reduce vulnerability to HIV and enhance protection, psychosocial well-being, and livelihoods development. To implement CSF, Bantwana collaborates with local government and three CBOs, including BUCAI, which currently provides OVC support services in three Kapchorwa sub-counties.

Because Joyce had adolescent children who were not receiving sufficient care, Bantwana and the local council worked with BUCAI to identify Joyce’s as one of the most vulnerable households eligible to receive support services. BUCAI connected Joyce to a community volunteer who visits monthly to check on her and helped her petition the local probation office for land. The request was granted and Joyce received one acre of land to build a home and start a farm to support her family.

With all of the support given, Joyce now considers her BUCAI community volunteer a good friend.

BUCAI also gave Joyce vocational skills training, which taught her how to care for goats and grow vegetables. Upon completion of the training, she received two goats and vegetable seedlings for her farm. Joyce is breeding the goats to sell, and with the income she makes, she hopes to buy a new roof for their home to replace the leaky one they have now. Joyce also plans to maintain a minimum of four goats at any one time to support her family.

"Now I own four goats, my younger children are back in school, and my two sons earn an income as a result of their training,” says Joyce. “I finally can see my family's future looking bright."

In addition to these successes, BUCAI referred Joyce and her children for HIV testing; thankfully all tested negative. In Uganda, Bantwana’s CSF project has empowered more than 1,400 vulnerable families like Joyce’s, educated more than 12,000 people with HIV-prevention messages, and tested 5,258 people for HIV.