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Global Grassroots Academy for Conscious Change – Rwanda/Uganda 2013 Program Update

45 Lyme Road, Suite 206 Hanover, NH 03755 Tel: 603-‐643-‐0400

www.globalgrassroots.org

Global Grassroots N. Uganda Academy for Conscious Change December 1, 2013 2013 Program Update

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The last 12 months has represented an exciting time of growth and expansion for Global Grassroots. Not only have we deepened our commitment to our work with grassroots women in Rwanda, but we have expanded our programs to serve women in northern Uganda, vulnerable high school girls in Rwanda, university students in the US and change agents in Liberia and Cameroon via a new technology platform. We are thrilled to provide a program update on our accomplishments this year. Our original goals for 2012-‐2013 included that we would:

• Complete the launch of our 6 remaining ventures in Rwanda, • Initiate the expansion of our Academy to Northern Uganda, for 5 new social ventures, and • Initiate a new Academy for Conscious Change in Rwanda with a cohort of 7-‐10 new teams.

We have achieved all of these goals and more. Over the last 12 months we have successfully:

• Launched our newest Academy for Conscious Change in Rwanda among 7 new water ventures from Rwanda and DR Congo (October 2013).

• Completed the launch of 6 out of 7 venture teams who were originally trained in our Academy for Conscious Change in Rwanda in 2010.

• Expanded our core women’s program to Northern Uganda among 8 new teams (January 2013). • Completed our first 12-‐month Girls Academy for Conscious Change in Rwanda among 70

vulnerable girls, working to advance 6 new ventures (November 2012-‐December 2013). • Initiated the expansion of our Girls Academy, in partnership with the Komera Project and

Partners in Health, to a new cohort of 22 vulnerable girls in Rwanda (November 2013) and, in partnership with Cornerstone Development, to serve up to 24 girls in Uganda (beginning January 2014).

In addition to our focused, core programs in Rwanda and Uganda, we have: • Conducted our second university program for students from the University of Virginia (May

2103) who utilized our teachings to develop a participatory development curriculum for an agricultural community in Tanzania over the summer.

• Received approval to offer the first accredited version of our curriculum at the University of Virginia in January 2014, offered as a graduate and undergraduate course for 3 academic credits.

• Completed and tested the beta version of our eAcademy for Conscious Change curriculum, which has supported venture teams from Cameroon and Liberia in developing programs benefiting women and girls. The platform should be ready to launch globally by year-‐end.

• Operationalized our Conscious Social Change Practitioner program, which involves 15 months and 250 hours of training, which has now produced 8 facilitators capable of carrying out our programs. Three directed our programs in Rwanda this October, two led our new program in Uganda last January and one spearheaded a student exchange program we conducted with Liberian change agents and Dartmouth students last December. We have had over 25 people participate in the practitioner training program to date.

Since 2006, Global Grassroots’ programs have now reached over 500 graduates whose work is serving tens of thousands of others across Central and West Africa. Following is a summary of each program and details on our progress this past year specifically in Rwanda and Uganda.


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RWANDA ACADEMY FOR CONSCIOUS CHANGE – 2013 | WATER & SANITATION Global Grassroots’ purpose is to support the development of conscious communities of change agents who will work independently, collectively and systemically to advance the rights and wellbeing of women and girls. Our long-‐term goal is that vulnerable women, especially in post-‐conflict countries, will have the capacity and resources to lead conscious social change, sustained by their own communities. Global Grassroots’ core program is its Academy for Conscious Change, a social venture incubator that catalyzes vulnerable women change agents who wish to launch their own grassroots civil society organizations. Our approach embraces a participatory development paradigm and integrates a holistic balance of personal and social transformation. The Academy program lasts an average of 18 months, the pace of which is driven by the team’s participation, and offers high-‐engagement support services in four phases:

1. Intensive, interactive 40-‐hour training program, incorporating: a. conscious leadership and personal growth practices b. mind-‐body trauma healing techniques c. social entrepreneurship and non-‐profit management skills

2. 6+ months of hands-‐on non-‐profit venture development facilitation 3. Seed grants and implementation support 4. 12-‐months non-‐profit apprenticeship with ongoing, high-‐engagement advisory support

In October, Global Grassroots initiated its newest cohort for the Academy for Conscious Change in Rwanda. This Academy had a special focus on water issues, given the overwhelming demand for our program from applicants seeking to address water issues. Attending the program included 33 participants (including 6 men and 27 women) representing seven social venture teams. Six teams were from the areas surrounding Kigali, Rwanda and we made a special invitation to a team from Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo to attend. The teams collectively represent 113 others who elected four or five representatives each to participate. Each group touched on these universal, shared problems involving water, with varying approaches and priorities of how to tackle them: ! seeking to eradicate waterborne diseases ! promoting community health ! ending violence against and sexual exploitation of women faced when collecting water for their

families ! ensuring children can attend school without complications from collecting water or water-‐borne

disease At the start, 57 percent of the group felt mostly or very ready to work on the roots of the issues they plan to address. At the end, based on the post-‐assessment responses, 90 percent of the group surveyed felt mostly or very ready to create social change. This was encouraging feedback that indicated the effectiveness of the training, which included site visits to several Global Grassroots water ventures surrounding Kigali. Following is an overview of the work of each of the participating teams:


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Trust Each Other | Abizeranye This venture based in Gasyata proposes to reach approximately 450 households by bringing sanitary water to 10 umudugudus (villages). They seek to help ensure good health and stop the conflicts in families and diseases caused by dirty water. Community members are fetching water from a long distance, which leads to violence against many women. In some cases the women are not strong enough to haul the water long distances which results in their being forced to trade sex for water delivery, and, subsequently, HIV. The community faces many of the associated problems of collecting contaminated water, including waterborne diseases and children missing school from water collection and ill health. The group envisions the installation of a tank that will allow for easy access to water and will train community members on how to purify water and the importance of good hygiene. Hold Each Other | Tuzamurane With 20 members hoping to serve 300 households near Ruhango, this venture seeks to address the critical issue of water scarcity in their community. Ground water in the valley is contaminated because it is shared with animals, and rainwater is contaminated when it is collected in unclean containers. This results in diarrhea and other waterborne diseases. Hold Each Other will establish a clean water access point by extending the municipal pipeline into their region and educate the community on good hygiene and sanitation through boiling water. The team is led by three women and two men, with education levels no greater than 6th grade. That’s Life | Nibwo Buzima This venture seeks to take over and re-‐open a community water access point previously operated by a different business that was closed down due to mismanagement. The lack of the water facility has meant women from 30 households have had to travel far for water collection and face sexual exploitation when they cannot afford to hire someone to deliver the water. By providing water close to homes, the cost of water can be reduced, hygiene can be increased and the possibility of clean, safe water can decrease ill health and violence against women. This venture is headed by five women of ages ranging from 47 to 36 with diverse education levels from 4th grade up to A3 level. Hard Workers | Abanyumurava Hard Workers has been operating as a Global Grassroots-‐sponsored venture for over 5 years, serving approximately 6000 people in three distinct villages. Given death and changes in membership, the team requested to have new members participate in our training program to deepen their capacity. Hard Workers, a team now of 17 women, initially formed to address sexual exploitation and violence experienced by vulnerable women who could not easily collect water for themselves, including the blind and disabled. In addition to providing clean water through three water access points, they wish to expand their activities to train people how to properly clean dirty water containers, often the culprits of diarrhea. Developing Ourselves | Twitezeimbene This venture seeks to reduce physical violence against women faced when fetching water at great distance from their homes. This group is particularly aggrieved by the lack of advocacy and awareness of violence against women and the fact that there is no infrastructure to deal with the consequences: diseases, unwanted pregnancies and thievery. These women seek to train their beneficiaries in the use of sanitary, clean water and develop a single water access point to serve their community.


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Unite | Ubumwe The team of 8 members from the Rwabutabura-‐Rugarama Cellule-‐Nyamirambo Sector seeks to bring clean water to 300 households. Its specific mission is to reduce the violence and abuse of women caused by not having access to water and, in particular, the lack of women’s equality related to the burden of water collection. With the provision of a municipal water line to a new water access point, this group of women believes that they can institute a series of activities that will improve hygiene, reduce diseases, allow children the chance to study, and reduce poverty. They plan to set-‐up training on women’s rights and specifically train 20 couples on these inner-‐related issues. The highest education level of the five attendees, ranging in age from 24 to 41, is third grade. Groupe d’Actions aux Initiatives Positive (GRAIP) -‐ Congo With 36 team members and a goal of serving over 50,000 households in 20 villages in Uvira, Sud-‐Kivu, Eastern DRC, GRAIP seeks to eradicate waterborne diseases across its communities and improve hygiene and community health in general. Their strong conviction is that if men get educated and involved it will help reduce violence against women. They will focus on education, eliminating water contamination, and shifting the burden of water collection to be shared between men and women. The critical first step is installing a water pipeline. At this time, we do not have an in-‐country presence to provide further high-‐engagement coaching and funding for this team. Nevertheless, we will remain in dialogue with the DRC team, providing advisory support where possible. Their women’s human rights programs that operate across 20 rural villages may be as a possible avenue for future expansion, should we decide to extend our programs to Congo. We have now begun working with each Rwanda team to provide coaching towards the completion of their venture plan and our venture proposal form, for consideration of start-‐up seed funding. We look forward to providing updates on their development in the coming months.

Global Grassroots staff convened from the US, Rwanda, Uganda and Liberia to participate in the training program, offering insights from our different programs and venture teams globally. The Academy training also represented a critical opportunity for our Conscious Social Change Practitioner program. Three of our newest practitioners from the US and Canada traveled to Rwanda voluntarily and at their own expense to join founder, Gretchen Wallace, to deliver the curriculum with her supervision and feedback. Our trainees are now completing their final requirements for certification, and will be ready


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to lead our training program and provide case management support for new ventures working with our technology platform in the coming year. 2010 ACADEMY FOR CONSCIOUS CHANGE TEAM UPDATES Over the past year, we have successfully completed the launch of 6 out of 7 teams that were in development from our incubator initiated in 2010. Following is an overview of each team and their progress to date: Education for Young Girls Preventing Harassment of and Drop-‐out Rates Among Girls During Menstruation by Building Safe Latrines at School Initial Seed Grant: $5665 The venture team of 35 members has continued its work at the Cyarwa primary and secondary school. Education for Young Girls built separate latrines for females and males so that boys could not harass girls or teachers, and constructed a washing station for girls to use during menstruation. They have also begun work on a girls “chamber” – in addition to the need for a shower or washing facility where girls can go to wash during menstruation in case they stain their clothes, they have found it important to provide a place where girls can also rest if they have cramps so that they do not have to return home. The chamber has completed its roof and the next step is to install the doors and windows and supply it with sanitary supplies for the girls. The team is working to educate, empower and inspire the community about the importance of education for girls, provide hygienic materials to girls, and teach the students about reproductive health. To date, they have trained 540 students about reproductive health and preventing unwanted pregnancies, and have been working to change the social attitudes that undervalue girls’ education. This spring, they were able to facilitate HIV testing for 255 students. They report that 12 are HIV+, 10 of whom are already receiving medication and 2 of whom did not know they were HIV+. They have followed up with all of their parents to provide additional education and to ensure parents are actively supporting their children’s needs. They have 25 new students enrolled this year and continue to follow up with 490 girls from their programming last year. The team reported on one very important conversation that took place with one of their beneficiaries in a reproductive health workshop:

In a very good discussion we had with young girls, one of them called UWANYIRIGIRA Carine, a student in third year, sadly apologized: “I apologize for being unfaithful, I had sex while you always taught us more about it.” (At the moment she is pregnant and has dropped out of school, but the team and students are now looking for her.)

One of the largest issues they face is alcoholism among parents, which introduces children to drinking and drugs. They also discovered that when girls dropped out of school, they often ended up in prostitution. The team made strategic partnerships with local leaders who have begun supervising bars to ensure that teenage girls are not allowed to spend time there in the company of older men. If bars are caught allowing this, local leaders have vowed to shut them down. Education for Young Girls has also worked with local businessmen to create jobs and have helped 40 women leave prostitution.


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They have done local fundraising in their community including, most recently, having a youth association contribute from the firewood they collect to sell on Saturdays. They also used a local football match to make appeals for funding. This helped to compensate a doctor who has provided additional training to the girls on reproductive health. In the year ahead, they plan to develop a hair salon project for their girls, to offer them additional vocational skills. We have been impressed with both their iterative problem-‐solving using entrepreneurial approaches learned through our training program, as well as their creative efforts to raise additional funds through their local community to ensure their sustainability. The national exams took place in October and the teachers expect to have results by January. We look forward to the opportunity to compare the performance of the girls this year compared to past years, with the hopes that their intervention to keep girls in school will have succeeded in improving their school performance. A Friend Indeed Combating Violence and Stigma Against Unwed Mothers & Their Children Initial seed grant: $4073 Ten women compose A Friend Indeed, which works in Byimana within the Ruhango sector. They seek to combat violence against unwed single mothers and their children. Fatherless children are believed to be abnormal, and the mothers are targets because they are not married. The women even face discrimination and abuse from their own parents and siblings who beat them, reject them, and deny them and their children shelter and support. Members of society view single mothers as a burden and resource drain: a woman with an infant cannot easily find work and often turns to prostitution; prostitution contributes to the spread of HIV/AIDS; if the woman cannot find work, she may beg or steal; and when the child is older, he or she may get into trouble on the street while left unsupervised as the mother works. A Friend Indeed formed small neighborhood associations for a total of 80 pregnant mothers and 120 illegitimate children and are working to change the conservative mindset that leads community members to ostracize single mothers through a multi-‐pronged approach that: • Provides reproductive health training to youth, to help them avoid unwanted pregnancies • Provides training to single mothers about their legal rights and skill training to help them earn a

living • Hosts 8 theater performances per year as well as open discussions to educate the public about the

violence single mothers often face • Helps local leaders to understand and address this issue more seriously • Creates strategic partnerships with local health clinics and social workers to help them measure

their impact To date, A Friend Indeed has completed their baseline issue study within their community among 140 single mothers, 70 members of the general public, school teachers, local officials and the local clinic. Results from their issue study include:

• 100% of the 140 single mothers surveyed gave birth out of marriage • 91% of the single mothers replied that their pregnancies were undesired • The clinic reported that in the last six months they had received 48 single girls who came to give

birth


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• 49% of single mothers admitted to having no knowledge of reproductive health • 73% of single mothers faced abuse as a result have having to live at home and be supported by

their families, 57% had been beaten by their families, and 29% were evicted from their homes • 92% of single mothers faced violence during pregnancy • 50% of single mothers had dropped out of school because they were pregnant • 37% of illegitimate children had dropped out of school • 88% of single mothers lived on less than $10 per month • Only 15% received any income from the father of their children, and 14% reported having to

trade sex for that income from the father of their children • For other sources of income, 44% relied upon friends or work in farming, 8% were involved in

trade, 4% on a salary, 4% had turned to prostitution, and 26% had no income and relied upon their families

• 100% of the 70 community members surveyed said they thought a single mother was someone who had become useless

In June, the team hosted their first training with 140 single mothers on human rights to help the young women have more knowledge and confidence in standing up for their rights. Their next endeavor will be to conduct a training in reproductive health with young people in the community to begin to improve education so as to prevent further unwanted pregnancies. They have also established a sewing program to provide young mothers with the skills to generate their own income for independence. The products made and sold by the women in training help to cover the operating expenses of the team. Following are photographs of their initial training program:

United People Fighting Domestic Violence and Improving Family Planning Through Education of Men and Women Initial Seed Grant: $3770 United People are working to fight domestic violence in their community of Byimana in the Ruhango sector. There, husbands abuse their wives, and neither is aware that laws protect women from this situation. The problem is compounded by a lack of family planning. Wives are challenged to care for many children with very limited resources.


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To reduce domestic violence, United People is providing home visits and legal training to both men and women in their community. They personally visit, monitor and evaluate the homes of troubled couples and talk to them about peaceful conflict resolution. To change cultural norms in the next generation they also provide training to couples preparing for marriage. United People is also working to foster strategic partnerships with legal experts to aid them in the creation of a curriculum on family law, health, reproduction and family planning. Finally, they are providing sewing lessons to women to help them earn their own income and become more respected by their husbands. The seven members of United People hope to decrease spousal abuse, lead more women to utilize family planning, and give women more power in their own households. In the first 12 months of operations they aim to: • Train 210 married couples (420 people) in gender equity, reproductive health, family planning and

HIV/AIDS prevention • Cut domestic violence community-‐wide by 50% • Reduce the number of women who leave their families due to physical and emotional abuse by 50% United People initiated their work in February. To date they have completed their baseline issue study and have begun their training program, reaching 300 of their initial target of 420 people, including couples experiencing conflict and abuse, future couples about to be married and local leaders. Following are a selection of results from their community survey among 29 women, 5 local and religious leaders and 5 clinic health workers:

• 78% of respondents are interested in the team’s program services • 86% of women are currently experiencing domestic violence • 45% suffer from physical abuse • 55% live in polygamy or circumstances where the male has multiple partners • In 66% of cases, abuse of alcohol plays a role in the violence • 17% of couples have separated • 27% of women have had to drop out of school • 83% have a monthly income less than $30 • 41% are dependent on money from their husband

The team is now working to complete their training of 120 additional people including couples in conflict, future couples and local officials and then will initiate their program in income generation to provide women with greater economic security to leave abusive relationships that do not change. For couples who are able to manage their conflict without violence, the team will make awards of pigs after conducting follow-‐up home visits. People of the Same Compassion Eliminating Child Malnutrition by Training Parents to Create Kitchen Gardens Initial Seed Grant: $4677 In the Mahembe community near Byimana, this group of teachers was concerned about the large number of children suffering from malnutrition and malnutrition-‐associated illness. Parents do not have the knowledge to prepare balanced and sufficient food for their children.


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The team formed by these teachers, People of the Same Compassion, has twenty members. They aim to eradicate malnutrition in Mahembe's children by training parents to prepare nutritious food and grow kitchen gardens to supplement their diets. This team is working to train parents on how to create kitchen gardens and how to prepare balanced meals using local products. Their research suggests that in addition to helping eliminate malnutrition and malnutrition-‐associated disease among Mahembe's children and infants, their efforts will reduce family and community conflicts as well. This venture's theory of change is that by training parents how to prepare a balanced meal and how to recognize the symptoms of malnutrition, and by training kids not to stigmatize malnourished children, malnutrition will be reduced and the number of children passing the national exams in school will increase. People of the Same Compassion's objectives after 1 year of operation include: • The proportion of children passing the national

exam will increase from 60% to 70% • Malnutrition will be decreased by 40% • Conflict related to poison accusations will decrease by 30% • 100% of trainees will prepare balanced meals • Stigmatization will reduce by 20% • 2 out of 8 children who dropped out because of malnutrition will return to school • 20% more parents will send malnourished children to school • 50% of women trained in weaving will have income to buy what they need After four years, this team of teachers aims to have 95% of students passing their national exams. People of the Same Compassion was launched in August 2013. They recently completed their baseline study, which revealed:

• 53% of pregnant women surveyed eat only 2 times a day and another 32% only eat once a day.

• When 64 children were asked what they drink when they are thirsty, water was the primary source while beer was second.

• When asked the consequences of not eating nutritious meals, only 55% of parents connected not eating balanced meals to malnutrition diseases. Among 64 respondents, 29 also thought changing hair or eyebrow color was also an indicator of not eating balanced meals.

The team is now working to construct a kitchen and training facility where they will host their trainings on cooking nutritious meals.


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Perseverance Keeping Girls in School and Reducing Teen Pregnancies Through Reproductive Health Education and Safe Latrines at School Initial seed grant: $5665 Students at Mahembe primary school, who are up to fifteen years of age, receive no education on reproductive health or body maturation from their school. Additionally, most of the parents in this community report that they are uncomfortable talking to their children about sex. Consequently, misconceptions about important topics like HIV/AIDS and pregnancy abound. For instance, 63 percent of female students interviewed thought that a girl could only get pregnant if she had sex more than once. Among female students who have dropped out of this school, 51 percent of them did so because they became pregnant. Drop out rates for girls are also impacted by a lack of adequate washing facilities, which forces girls to stay home during menstruation, subsequently causing them to fall behind in their studies, and fail their classes. The team is addressing this issue from several different angles. Perseverance is working to build a washroom for girls that will ensure the 748 female students and teachers of Mahembe Primary School will have a place to attend to their needs during menstruation. They will be conducting larger trainings to dispel myths about reproductive health and HIV/AIDS, and teaching the community about the importance of gender equality. This multi-‐pronged approach ensures girls stay in school and are not obstructed from doing so by any aspect of their reproductive and sexual health, including ignorance, harassment, teen pregnancy, HIV or lack of access to sanitary supplies and facilities. Other activities they are initiating include:

• Holding a monthly public sensitization about HIV contamination and treatment, and the equal right to an education for both girls and boys

• Raising awareness among parents about children’s biological needs, puberty and reproductive health by training 40 community representatives among parents

• Training 80 students from Mahembe Primary School about reproductive health • Training 30 moto and taxi bike drivers about reproductive health and safe sex, including

condom use • Visiting select families every 3 months to discuss children’s reproductive health and how to

have conversations with their children. Perseverance was launched in March 2013, and in July they completed their community issue study, revealing the following:

• 26 girls had dropped out of school in the previous 12 months due to pregnancy • School leaders from different 8 schools answered that 87% of the people who date their

students (girls) are bicycle and moto drivers • 86% of moto drivers sought to drive young girls with the aim of dating them, yet only 14% said

they knew how to properly use a condom. • Only 40% parents had had conversations with their daughters about reproductive health


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They are now completing construction of the washroom facility. People of Love Providing Accessible, Clean Water to Eliminate the Abuse of Women Initial Seed Grant: $5648 This team of 35 members works in the rural area of Kamonyi, where a severe scarcity of water causes and triggers violence, domestic conflict, and other societal challenges. The burden of fetching water – trekking hours down to the nearest source and slowly lugging jerry cans back up the mountainside – falls almost exclusively to women and girls. As a result, Kamonyi's women are brutally overworked, and community members tell stories of miscarriages and injury. Domestic abuse is prevalent in Kamonyi, and the community identifies water scarcity as the trigger in most instances. Men arrive home to an exhausted wife, a meager or uncooked meal, and unwashed dishes or clothes, and feel that a beating is in order. Women are discouraged from using their time to participate in local government or attend societal meetings. The community's inability to irrigate their lands or to eat foods that require water-‐intensive preparation causes malnutrition, particularly among children. Children who must fetch water in the mornings do not make it to school on time, and others are sent home because their unwashed clothes do not pass the regular cleanliness checks. The local primary school requires students to bring water to school for cleaning day, often on Fridays, and if children are sent home if they show up empty handed. People of Love is reducing all such problems related to lack of water by installing a clean water point in Kamonyi. The team will visit couples in their homes and educate those who come to use the water point about domestic violence laws and consequences, gender equality, and the use of kitchen gardens to fight malnutrition. They will provide men with training about women's rights and the importance of sharing domestic responsibilities.

People of Love has only recently begun operations, with the potential to serve between 16000 and 2000 people. It has struggled with various delays including poor reliability and capacity of water flow from the municipal water company that feeds its access point, and disputes with community members who have wanted compensation for the extension of the pipeline through their fields. Nevertheless, the two and a half years that the venture has been in

development with Global Grassroots support has already impacted the community. One team member, Nyirandegeya Christine, a 34 year old mother of three, is now seen as a trusted community leader who is able to make things happen. Respect for her knowledge has led to more gender equity in her home. Further, since becoming a founder of this organization, she has built solid relationships with other women in her community. Inspired by Christine’s self-‐empowerment, they no longer think that just because they are women it is better to stay home.


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Handicap Rwandais Reabilite Reintegre dans ses Droits (HRD) HRD is an existing association that focuses on providing services for youth with physical and mental disabilities. Their participation in Global Grassroots’ Academy was intended so that they could pursue a venture that would alleviate stigma against the mothers of handicapped children. Many mothers are cast out of their families and rejected by the fathers of their children, who believe they are at fault for giving birth to disabled children. Their venture ideas and priorities shifted over the last two years to focus on economic empowerment activities through the establishment of a local grocery store. This program is no longer eligible for Global Grassroots funding, as it is a business enterprise not focused on alleviating a social ill. Nevertheless, we remain in contact with the team and are providing periodic advisory support when possible. NORTHERN UGANDA ACADEMY FOR CONSCIOUS CHANGE Since 1986, the conflict between the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and the government of Uganda has caught civilians in the crossfire and caused widespread insecurity and humanitarian crises throughout northern Uganda. At the height of the conflict, more than 1.8 million people — 80 percent of northern Uganda’s population — were displaced. Forced to flee their homes, they had to live in squalid IDP camps, strained by massive overcrowding and insufficient resources. The LRA became infamous for its brutality in the region, committing mass atrocities including rape, mutilation, and massacre of civilians. The LRA also abducted large numbers of civilians – primarily children and adolescents – for forced training as guerrillas. Abducted girls and women were additionally forced to serve as sex slaves, subject to forced pregnancies meant to re-‐populate the ranks of LRA fighters, and put at extremely high risk for contracting HIV. In fact, up to 70-‐80% of abducted women who have returned to the region are HIV+. The conflict has calmed substantially in northern Uganda, and thousands of displaced people have returned home after twenty years of war. While there are many initiatives working to rehabilitate male former child soldiers, there are far fewer resources for women who are returning with the added trauma of having experienced prolonged sexual violence — especially those who were forced to “marry” and birth the children of LRA rebels. Others were raped in displacement camps by the police officers charged with their protection. Many are often stigmatized or cast out by their own families, forced to support themselves and their children alone as undereducated and unskilled single mothers. By strengthening the capacity of Ugandan women to heal from the trauma of war and sexual violence and engage in their own priorities for development, Global Grassroots is helping to create an underlying culture of collaboration, women’s empowerment, healing, and reconciliation. After conducting the second of two feasibility studies in Northern Uganda in late 2012, we identified a local partner organization, Women’s Economic Development and Globalization – Gulu (GWED-‐G), with whom we are collaborating to serve our target population of vulnerable women change agents. GWED-‐G is located in Gulu, Amuru and Noya districts, in some of the more remote areas where most NGOs are not located. They work with former abductees of the Lord’s Resistance Army and those who were internally displaced and have been living in camps. GWED-‐G's work focuses on educating about women’s rights, supporting reconciliation and peace-‐building, providing psycho-‐social support, investing in village savings and loan groups, advancing SGBV prevention through counseling and theater, and providing HIV/AIDS prevention and maternal and child health services. They were eager to bring new programming to help women develop their own solutions for their communities. We feel very aligned with their commitment to letting women lead, and our partnership thus far has been easy and enthusiastic.


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With GWED-‐G's assistance we collected 17 applications from rural women's teams in five sub-‐counties of Gulu, and selected eight teams to participate in our first Academy program. Each team elected five representatives to attend, resulting in a cohort of 40 change agents (32 women and 8 men). In January we delivered our Phase 1 training program, in a new 9-‐day residential, immersion format, offering our comprehensive curriculum in mind-‐body trauma healing, conscious leadership practices and social entrepreneurship skills. The teams are now engaged in Phase 2 of our 18-‐month program to complete the development of their ventures with our high-‐engagement coaching.

Though our goal was to fund five initial teams, we have been impressed with the commitment of all eight groups and expect all to launch. We are excited to share a summary of them with you:

Behavioral Change | Loko Kwo Pe Yot Women’s Group is using sensitizations, drama and debate to raise awareness about the causes and consequences of HIV and to encourage condom use. Team size: 33 members. Implementers | Lacan Ite Bit Kuku-‐kuku Women’s Group is working to reduce the high level of domestic violence in the community through drama, song, psychological support and home visits. They will be specifically targeting comorbid problem of alcoholism, which is often a catalyst for violence. Team size: 33 members.

The Initiators | Cing Mayubu Women’s Group is addressing the causes and consequences of divorce and relationship conflict through drama and sensitizations among couples. Team size: 30 members. The Humble Workers | Lacac Pe Lony Palwo Women’s Group is working to help women gain and retain access to property and become more equal partners in household decision-‐making. To address this issue, they will be holding public meetings, making house visits, creating a PR campaign and building an emotional support center for victims of land-‐related conflict. Team size: 25 members.

Women are the Pillars of the Home | Mon Aye Gang Women’s Group is tackling the issue of women’s literacy. They have found a link wherein alcohol abuse creates poverty, which prevents families from paying school fees, resulting in illiteracy and other problems, including domestic violence. They aim to help to prevent this cycle as well as help single mothers return to school. Team size: 30 members.

Unity is Strength | Waribo-‐Cingwa Women’s Group is addressing the uneven distribution of labor in the household, which overburdens women on a daily basis. They will use theatre and


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public debate to challenge cultural norms, promote family planning and empower women. Team size: 30 members.

Women for Leadership | Peko-‐Rwede Pe Women’s Group is using theater to train women in leadership and gender rights, sensitizing men to ensure a woman’s right to leave the house is protected, and developing mentorship programs to encourage women to participate in government. Team size: 29 women and 3 men.

The Dedicated Workers | Aketo-‐Koma Women’s Group is providing sensitizations and training to women on women’s rights to raise awareness of and address cultural values that limit women’s activities. Team size: 36 women and 12 men.

We are excited about the next 12 months and the launch of our 8 new ventures, the opportunity to see how our program is working in a new culture post-‐conflict, and the learnings that will emerge from this partnership approach to expanding our work. Our vision is to build a solid and comprehensive conscious social change program in Northern Uganda, ultimately sustainable through Ugandan resources, Ugandan staff and supported by Ugandan change agents. GIRLS ACADEMY FOR CONSCIOUS CHANGE As Rwanda rebuilds in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide, an education gap remains. According to our local partner organization, only 17% of girls are reported to start secondary school, with secondary school completion rates reduced even further. Further, it is during the school breaks in November, December, April and August, when girls are at greatest risk of teenage pregnancy and later dropping out of school. Global Grassroots is working to address these issues by offering a comprehensive, social-‐emotional program that will provide young women with the social entrepreneurship and conscious leadership skills necessary to become empowered and confident in their personal, professional and academic abilities. The Girls Academy for Conscious Change adapts Global Grassroots’ proven curriculum for women in conscious leadership and social entrepreneurship to provide an avenue for high school girls to advance their own solutions to the issues that matter most to them, and develop the capacity as change leaders in their community. The Girls Academy for Conscious Change in Rwanda offers its social venture incubator curriculum to catalyze girls as change leaders during annual school breaks. The Girls Academy begins with a 6-‐day intensive and interactive training program in social entrepreneurship skills, mind-‐body trauma healing practices, creative-‐problem solving processes and conscious leadership approaches. The girls then work in teams to design social ventures to address priority issues in their home communities, such as child abuse, child homelessness, domestic violence, and girls’ reproductive health. They implement their programs during the following six weeks of their year-‐end holiday break. Reconvening during their April recess, girls follow up with impact assessments and learn how to develop financial reports for their local donors. In August, the girls again reconvene for a month to complete their program activities and evaluations, while mentoring the next cohort of participants who offer support as volunteers.


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The inaugural Girls Academy for Conscious Change was launched in the village of Rwinkwavu, in Eastern Rwanda in November 2012 for 70 vulnerable high school girls in partnership with the Komera Project – originally a program of Partners in Health. The Komera Project is now a 501(c)(3) non-‐profit organization that advances secondary education of girls in Rwanda by providing both mentorship and financial support to girls for whom secondary education is

otherwise not possible. The girls include teenage mothers, girls who are HIV+ and those who are the heads of their child-‐headed households. For these girls, their education is critical – the further they advance in their academics the more likely they are to improve their earning potential, their health and their sense of self-‐worth thereby enabling them to break the bonds of poverty. Following are short summaries of the six teams initiated through our first Girls Academy:

Brave People is working to reduce the number of street children, ages 8-‐14, by educating them in performances using songs, plays and poems. Their goal is to mobilize these children to leave their street life, and bring them back to school and to their families. To date, this team of 18 high school girls has independently reintegrated seven children back into their original families and helped three children find families to adopt them. They are working to ensure all children are reenrolled in school. Invincible is working to reduce hunger by increasing farm yields using fertilizers, anti-‐erosion techniques and smart water usage. With a team of 5 members, Invincible was able to approach local leaders who agreed to partner with them, purchased four pigs to give to families and has worked to train the families on using fertilizer from the pigs to benefit the crops. New Life is working to fight overpopulation by providing 400 people with trainings on family planning, performing educational plays, songs and poems that show the public the “bad effects” of overpopulation and mobilizing people to use family planning. New Life’s team of 17 girls has created strategic partnerships with nurses from the local health center who helped them provide comprehensive family planning training to local women.

Hard Workers has pledged to reduce poverty among women and girls by fighting their lack of self-‐confidence and teaching them marketable skills. They began by organizing basket-‐weaving classes that take place under a tree. Women gather in the shade to weave, while hearing these seven girls talk about self-‐confidence and how to value the skills that they have. Step Forward is working to reduce domestic violence faced by children, ages 7-‐20, by conducting trainings among 300 parents to reduce the ignorance of child rights. They also aim to help children return to school and acquire health insurance. This small team of nine has taken the initial steps towards implementing their vision. Step Forward facilitated conversations between parents and children at a local municipal office. They discussed children’s rights, how


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parents can help children achieve a bright future and worked to develop a “culture of conversation” between parents and children. They also gave school materials such as notebooks, pens, school bags and soap to 10 of the most vulnerable children. Withstand is working solve the problem of the lack of day care centers (that result in children under age 7 playing on the streets and getting into accidents ) by training parents and local leaders about the importance of these centers, and to build and register pre-‐school aged children in those centers. Recognizing that their vision would require significant funding and local partnership, they approached local leaders who agreed to raise this issue at community meetings and help mobilize the population to build nursery schools. They also led two public discussions about the importance of day care to more than 100 people.

As with our women’s programs, our primary program objective is to accelerate the process of personal and societal transformation through training, resources, fellowship and on-‐going facilitation. Our social venture training objective is to provide a team with all the hard skills needed to create a plan for a viable social enterprise that will address a core social issue. Our personal transformation objective is to help girls deepen their sense of power, expand their sense of self-‐awareness, and develop tools for creating social change. Our social transformation objective is to build the systems, tools, networks and support structures that will catalyze communities of social change agents who will continue to solve grassroots social issues facing women and girls. Global Grassroots evaluates our effectiveness in delivering hard skills and improving the wellbeing of girls in terms of the individual healing, social emotional capacities and leadership skills of our graduates, the number of sustainable ventures launched, the ventures’ positive social impact, and teams’ abilities to iteratively solve other social issues. In particular for our girls program, we are investing in an intensive and detailed monitoring and evaluation process, incorporating the five pillars of social emotional learning advanced by the Collaborative for Academic and Social-‐Emotional Learning (CASEL). These include:

• Self-‐Awareness (feelings, values, strengths) • Self-‐Management (stress, emotions, impulses and goals) • Social Awareness (empathy) • Relationship skills (cooperation, conflict management, good relationships) • Responsible decision-‐making (ethics, concern for others, wellbeing of self and community,

respect) Our model of Conscious Social Change goes beyond social-‐emotional learning to impact these additional capacities:

• Mindfulness of and ability to survey emotions, thought-‐patterns, and physical needs while simultaneously aware of external environment

• Recognition of fears, limiting beliefs, attachments, shadows, and compulsive reactivity and how to attend to these wounds so that they do not drive unconscious behaviors

• Attunement to the needs of others, including use of deep listening skills and conscious conflict resolution methods that empower and support the self-‐sufficiency and agency of others

• Sense of power, well-‐being, and capacity to create change • Ability to recognize negative coping behaviors and engage in positive methods of self-‐care • Understanding of one’s own assets, passions, capabilities and gifts that can be leveraged to

contribute meaningfully to the common good with a sense of inner-‐driven purpose


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• Understanding of change from personal experience, and how to support transformation in others through understanding, compassion and collaboration

We are extremely excited to establish new metrics that can demonstrate the effectiveness of our model and our concept of conscious social change among girls. Initial feedback from our pre-‐and post-‐training assessments include:

• 72% of the students wanted to finish college and that 64% felt that they would succeed in doing so.

• The number of students who felt they were “very able” (5 on a scale of 1 to 5) to create social change in their community increased from 47% to 70% after our training.

• From our PTSD questionnaire, in response to whether they have recently had the experience of "suddenly acting or feeling as if a stressful experience were happening again" the pre-‐training response was 16% not at all. After 2 weeks, the post-‐training response was 49% not at all.

• From our PTSD questionnaire, in response to whether they have recently had "physical reactions (heart pounding, trouble breathing) -‐ the pre-‐training response was only 24% “not at all”, but in the post-‐training response 47% answered “not at all”, indicating the positive impact of our mind-‐body trauma healing skills.

The Girls Academy for Conscious Change provides the resources necessary for girls to advance the wellbeing of their communities -‐ and to claim the same for themselves. Our Academy deepens a girl’s sense of power to act for social change and provides concrete skills, strengthening her capacity to initiate her own solutions as a conscious leader. By catalyzing girls to engage in their own priorities for development, we help to create an underlying culture of collaboration, equitable involvement, and girl’s empowerment. Ultimately, our work creates conditions that value girls, paving the way for future generations of women to be seen as leaders and innovators in their communities. We will be completing our 12-‐month follow-‐up evaluation with our first 70 participants in December, and are eager to see how our new metrics reveal the impact of our work on these young change agents. We will continue our program for a second year in partnership with the Komera Project in Rwanda with a cohort of 18 new girls. Our first set of 70 graduates will provide inspiration and peer mentorship to our newest cohort, offering another avenue for them to demonstrate their leadership skills. We also have a new partner organization eager to have us expand our Girls Academy to Uganda. Cornerstone Development operates a leadership academy for high performing young women in the last two years of high school. On their path to university, girls often get derailed during the 9-‐month break between graduation and university enrollment. Our programs will engage these girls during that timeframe, deepen their sense of self, agency to create change, and compassionate leadership skills and support them in having a successful experience creating change in their home communities. We have accepted 13 girls into our first Uganda Girls Academy beginning in January. We are excited about refining our program after this initial pilot and expanding our reach to other vulnerable girls in Rwanda, Northern Uganda, Liberia and elsewhere as we grow parallel programs for women in these same countries, who can serve as mentors and inspiration to young female change agents.


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FINANCIAL SUMMARY We invite you to download our 2012 financial summary and a financial summary of our first 3 quarters of 2013. We feel delighted to have been able to accomplish a significant deepening of our work and all of our objectives over the last 12 months, even though we have operated on less than 100 percent of our original budget. Cost savings came from delaying middle-‐level hires in the US and internationally and a reduction in expense for two other programs – our technology platform (eAcademy), which will be completed under budget this fall, and our university program (uAcademy), which has been cash positive. Our Girls Academy was not originally budgeted for in late 2012, but was able to be covered through special fundraising initiatives on GlobalGiving that met our financial needs for our pilot program. We have expended more than expected in the delivery of our Uganda and Rwanda Academy for Conscious Change training programs, as we decided to host residential programs that allowed international staff to attend and for change agents to travel from throughout rural areas to participate in an intensive program with meals and accommodation. However, we have not yet disbursed the grant funding intended for our Uganda teams, which we anticipate will be needed beginning in January. We have also begun to shift our sources of funds to include income-‐generating strategies. Over the last two years we have been experimenting with several programs to generate revenue for our core work by leveraging our own assets. This includes the uAcademy adaptation of our curriculum for a university audience. Our first semester-‐length program was offered at Dartmouth in the fall and winter of 2012 followed by a student-‐change agent exchange program in Liberia in December 2012. As a result of the success of this program, we were invited to replicate our program at the University of Virginia as a May preparation course for students embarking upon international service-‐learning trips, and this January as our first accredited January-‐term course. We now expect to have the opportunity to expand our offering to other universities in the coming academic year. Further, our practitioner certification program has generated training fees. These practitioners now represent a trained corps ready to deploy when needed to organize, deliver and oversee our programs. So far, the program has also been cash-‐positive, and we have another 6 practitioners in the 15-‐month training program eager to complete the certification requirements. GOALS FOR 2014 As we look ahead to 2014, we are excited by the opportunities presented to us for deepening our impact. Our goals for 2014 include: • Expand our Girls Academy to Uganda for up to 24 high-‐performing high school girls. • Teach the first university-‐accredited course based on our curriculum at the University of Virginia and

expand to one additional school. • Fund 8 new social ventures in Northern Uganda. • Develop 6 new social ventures in Rwanda addressing the intersection of water access and violence

against women and girls. • Officially launch our eAcademy for Conscious Change, making our curriculum available to change

agents globally. • Conduct a 10-‐week global, intensive impact assessment of our programs. We look forward to providing a detailed evaluation of our work in the coming year as we complete our impact assessment. We extend our deepest gratitude to all our donors for their continued investment in our work and invite you to partner with us in the year to come.

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