Africhild is a research organization that does capacity building of researchers in Uganda and Africa as a whole. It is a pan-African organization that does research on child-focused issues and aims at improving the general welfare of the African child, most especially the girl child who has proven vulnerable over the years. We had the chance to meet with Miss. Wanican Joyce, the executive director of Africhild in Uganda, who informed us that the organization had done trainings in seven major universities in Uganda in the course of the last three years. These trainings were mainly for the few nominated faculty members of the seven major universities with the aim of building their capacity on child-focused research. The trained faculty members are then expected to integrate what they learnt in the course of their training into the teaching of their programs.
Through this training, more researchers and scholars have been and are still equipped with the necessary skills and methods in carrying out child-focused research. Miss. Wanican further noted that since Uganda’s population is mainly composed of young people, with more than half of the population being children, it would wouldn’t be right for the elders to go on making decisions for children without knowing what their opinion is and without knowing the issues that affect them and how these issues affect them. She cited that one of the major aims of their organization is to create room for children to freely participate in research so that their voices can be captured which will eventually enable the people in the community to make informed decisions regarding the welfare of their children. The organization further seeks to involve mothers in trainings to teach them on how poor health habits such as smoking and drinking could affect their unborn babies, since their primary aim is the welfare of the African child.
Miss. Wanican informed us that Uganda Christian University has been an active partner to their organization over the years and has hosted several workshops over the last three years. It provided the facilities and suitable environment that have enabled the smooth running of these workshops thanks to the university’s Christian foundation and beautiful environment. Uganda Christian University together with Africhild research organization and other partners jointly founded the conference on family which has helped families country wide to reduce cases of domestic violence and counseled parents on how their habits positively or negatively affect a child’s life. This workshop also aimed strongly at promoting the teaching of research methods by the nominated faculty members since most students, as noted by Prof. Fred Wabwire-Mangen of Makerere University, struggle a lot when it comes to research, others even dropping out because they have not adequately been taught research methods. Grants have also been offered to faculty members by Africhild research organization to carry out seven different researches on what affects children and the findings of this exercise will be used to make informed decisions that will improve the well being of children.
Uganda Christian University, in partnership with Africhild Research Organization, is going to do research on menstrual hygiene of adolescent girls in Mukono district in which they will aim to find out the major challenges adolescent girls face at school and the rate at which this has led to their dropping out. Miss. Wanican noted that most girls who do not have access to sanitary pads have always ended up dropping out of school due the intolerable forms of abuse they are subjected to because poor menstrual hygiene management. She says they have partnered with several non-government organizations in buying and freely distributing sanitary pads to schools and hard to areas such that adolescent girls can be able to attend school comfortably without being inconvenienced by her menstrual hygiene. The findings of this research will enable the parents and teachers know how to help their adolescent students and daughters handle and improve their menstrual hygiene, thereby decreasing the number of school girls who drop out due to menstrual hygiene. The faculty members from several these universities have also been asked to write proposals to win grants for their universities. These faculty members have further been called upon to support other faculty members to strengthen their research methods, skills and training.
Regards,
