DEPRIVED KIDS

We’re focused on women, girls, and sustainable community development.  For the past eight years, our work has served an impoverished rural area of 600,000 people in Uganda, East Africa. We’ve worked very closely with hundreds of families to give them a hand up (not a hand out). We've built schools and a hospital–which has helped saved thousands of women and children in childbirth and provided life-saving treatment and care to individuals affected by HIV/AIDS. After all of our work, what did survivors of the devastating HIV virus tell us they wanted most?  They wanted to rebuild their lives and become entrepreneurs. They wanted dignity and they wanted to work–and they wanted to do it in a way that's familiar to life in Uganda's lush countryside: by raising animals and growing crops. So, by leveraging a highly successful model of giving a "Hand Up, Never a Hand Out", we committed to empowering 630 families and 3,300 people whose lives have been ravaged by HIV to become entrepreneurs. Our program, Project GRACE, has been successful beyond these families' wildest dreams. Just Like My Child Foundation's Project GRACE is a micro-enterprise program that provides a loan of a dairy goat together with intensive training to healthy, self-motivated individuals affected by HIV–so they can create a self-sustaining business that will support their families and send their children to school.  In partnership with Heifer International and Bishop Asili Hospital, Project GRACE is improving the livelihood, health, nutrition, education, and local economy of impoverished communities in Uganda. The Impact of a Goat: How It Works Project GRACE participants undergo rigorous qualification screenings to ensure they'll be able to meet the co-investment requirements of the loan (which includes gathering materials to build their animal's shelter). Once chosen, they receive comprehensive training designed to advance their skills for success–covering topics such as sustainable agricultural methods, animal management and care, environmental protection, business and financial management, and HIV/AIDS awareness. At the end of the program, participants repay their loan by "Passing on the Gift" of one of their dairy goat's offspring to the next family in need–enabling Project GRACE to continue a cycle of empowerment and ensuring the ripple effect is felt by the whole community.