Displaying 1 - 10 of 10
This chapter from Social Work Practice in Africa: Indigenous and Innovative Approaches showcases examples of home-grown indigenous and innovative models of social work practice in Uganda, including local models for addressing the HIV/AIDS orphan crisis in Rakai district. "The documentation of these local models thus sets in motion the conditions necessary to achieve the indigenisation of the social work curriculum, that is, social workers having a clear understanding of the…
Abstract
Background
This article is based on information collected about the situation of double orphans who are heading households in Rakai District, Uganda. The information will be used as justification and guidance for planning actions to improve the situation of these and similar children. This research is thus the first step in an Action Research approach leading to specific interventions. The aim of this article is to describe the situation of these orphaned children, with an emphasis on the psychosocial challenges they face.
Methods
The study involved interviews, focus…
ABSTRACT
In Uganda, incidences of disease and social unrest resulting in parental deaths have created a large orphan population throughout the country. This study explored the experiences of orphaned children who specifically take on the role of being both mother and father to their siblings. The researcher had discussions with 34 child-headed households throughout Uganda over the course of three months. The young people discussed their experiences of loss, reactions of self along with the reactions of the community, the vulnerabilities they face, coping with loss and daily stressors,…
In 2017, the USAID Displaced Children and Orphans Fund (DCOF) of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) engaged the USAID-funded MEASURE Evaluation to build on and reinforce progress in advancing national efforts on behalf of children who lack adequate family-based care in Uganda. MEASURE Evaluation worked with a Country Core Team (CCT), led by the Ministry of Gender, Labor and Social Development (MGLSD) and comprising government partners and other stakeholders, to design, plan, and conduct a participatory self-assessment of the national alternative care system. The…
This paper investigates the time–space practices of young people caring for their siblings in youthheaded households affected by AIDS in Tanzania and Uganda. Based on qualitative exploratory research with young people heading households, their siblings, NGO workers and community members, the article develops the notion of sibling ‘caringscapes’ to analyse young people’s everyday practices and caring pathways through time and space. Participatory time-use data reveals that older siblings of both genders regularly undertake substantial caring tasks at the very high end of the caregiving…
This is the summary report on the research phase of a project looking at the needs of child-carers in four African countries; Nigeria, Uganda, Angola and Zimbabwe. The research consisted of a literature review and participatory child-led research in one site in each of the four countries.
The research used an innovative child-led approach. In each site children who were carers of sick or disabled adults, elderly grandparents or young children came together for a workshop. At this workshop through a number of participatory activities they shared the stories of their lives as carers. They…
This report presents key findings from a small-scale pilot research project that explored the experiences and priorities of young people caring for their siblings in sibling-headed households affected by AIDS in Tanzania and Uganda. Qualitative and participatory research was conducted with 33 young people living in sibling-headed households and 39 NGO staff and community members in rural and urban areas of Tanzania and Uganda.
The report analyses the ways that young people manage transitions to caring for their younger siblings following their parents’ death and the impacts of caring on…
ABSTRACT
This paper explores the ways that young people express their agency and negotiate complex lifecourse transitions according to gender, age and inter- and intra-generational norms in sibling-headed households affected by AIDS in East Africa. Based on findings from a qualitative and participatory pilot study in Tanzania and Uganda, I examine young people's socio-spatial and temporal experiences of heading the household and caring for their siblings following their parent's/relative's death. Key dimensions of young people's caring pathways and life transitions are…
The phenomenon described as a “child-headed household” was first noted in the late 1980s in the Rakai district of Uganda. Up until this point it was assumed that ‘there is no such thing as an orphan in Africa’, as children without parents would be easily and naturally looked after within the households of their extended families which traditionally acted as the continent’s social security system - protecting vulnerable community members, caring for the poor and sick and transmitting traditional social values and education.
The recent magnitude of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, particularly in Sub-…
Orphans living on their own in child-headed households are a new, but growing phenomenon, which has resulted from the overwhelming number of orphans caused by the HIV/AIDS scourge. With the traditional extended family and community support networks disintegrating, orphans in CHHs have had to depend on their own resilience by developing a continuum of coping and survival strategies. Any support to orphans in CHH especially by NGOs must be conscious of these dynamics, if coping capacities in CHH are to be enhanced in a way that creates sustainability in CHHs. The failure to appropriately…