Citrine Agency is a small community-based organization in urban Uganda that seeks to provide orphans and vulnerable children and youth with education and opportunity. Some of Citrine Agency's projects include income-generating activities, a community garden, and a learning center for children without access to schooling.

The organization is currently working on scaling-up their learning center, which is now a single-room building where out-of-school children gather for a few hours a week. The new center will offer 8 classrooms and multiple classes to accommodate the needs of over 400 out-of-school children in the community.

Citrine Agency is currently seeking support to make the learning center scale-up possible. Ordinarily Citrine Agency projects are fully sustainable by creating the income needed to keep the projects going, plus extra to assist in lifting the community out of dire poverty. However, the initial costs of the learning center scale-up are too high for the community to be able to support.

For more information about Citrine Agency, please visit our website: www.citrineagency.org or check us out on Facebook or Twitter!

Problem

Citrine Agency operates in the Uganda urban slum of Bukasa, one of the poorest areas in the capital city of Kampala. Many residents of the slum community are internally displaced peoples from conflict in the northern part of the country. HIV and other illnesses are quite a problem for the community, and there are many orphans and other vulnerable children in the area. Most families in Bukasa are too poor to send their children to school (school fees can be quite high), so children remain uneducated and unable to break the cycle of crushing poverty. Major issues in this impoverished community include lack of healthcare, poor sanitation and hygiene, few opportunities for education, and little chance of having an income to support a household.

Solution

The solution to the problem of chronic poverty is community-driven sustainable change. By providing an initial investment in income-generating activities, individuals in the community have been able to start small businesses for themselves that eventually pay for the initial investment and continue to generate a small income for themselves and their families. These activities also produce small amounts of money to support other community initiatives, such as latrines, a community garden, and a learning center. The key to this solution is community involvement.

Exemple

The members of the Bukasa community most positively impacted by the Citrine Agency initiatives are orphans and vulnerable children. These children gain better nutrition through our community garden program, and get some education through our learning center. Our activities give them a chance of a positive future they otherwise would not likely have.