Girls Kick It Chicken Project (Gweno Project)
Girls Kick It aims to develop a poultry micro-enterprise, that will be manged by girls and women living in the Paicho community within the Gulu District of Northern Uganda. The business will simultaneously provide management training for the girls and women who will manage the micro-enterprise in order to achieve long-term, locally-run sustainable economic opportunity.
A propos de vous
Section 1: About You
Prénom
Anna
Nom
Phillips
URL du site Web
Organisation
Global Youth Partnership for Africa, Girls Kick It
Pays
Section 2: About Your Organization
Nom
Global Youth Partnership for Africa, Girls Kick It
Site Web
Téléphone
858.254.8810
Adresse
1865 California St NW #1 Washigton DC 20009
Votre organisation est-elle une
organisation à but non lucratif
Pays
Uganda, GUL
Your idea
Name Your Project
Girls Kick It Chicken Project (Gweno Project)
Country your work focuses on
Uganda
Describe Your Idea
Girls Kick It aims to develop a poultry micro-enterprise, that will be manged by girls and women living in the Paicho community within the Gulu District of Northern Uganda. The business will simultaneously provide management training for the girls and women who will manage the micro-enterprise in order to achieve long-term, locally-run sustainable economic opportunity.
Website URL
Innovation
What makes your idea unique?
As a locally run, non-governmental organization and project Girls Kick It hopes to establish public-private partnerships in order to expand our micro-finance projects. Creating relationships with local private sector (i.e. small business owners) who are looking to purchase poultry and other local agri-goods can go a long way in sharing best practices and in reaching the goals of the our “Gweno Project.” Ultimately, this approach could reduce the dependency of Girls Kick It on donors from outside of Uganda, and forging strong allies within Uganda for the long-term. We also see these relationships as great way to convey the power of sport to the local business community who would see the impact sports are having in the lives of young women in Northern Uganda. Moreover, we would hope to further the partnerships with the local small businesses by including them in local and regional soccer tournaments as sponsors, participants, etc….
Do you have a patent for this idea?
Non
Impact social
This Entry is about (Issues)
What impact have you had?
Girls Kick It has positively impacted the lives of more than 300 girls, providing them access to athletic games, teambuilding and leadership building activities in addition to weekly/daily soccer practices. GYPA, our parent organization, organized a mixed gender team to represent Uganda at the annual Homeless World Cup that took place in Cape Town (2006) and Denmark (2007). GYPA organized its first all female delegation to the Female Homeless World Cup in Melbourne (2008) and will be competing in Brazil for the 2010 HWC. In 2009, the US Department of State selected twelve GKI players and two coaches to attend a cultural exchange in Washington D.C. The players and coaches had the opportunity to interact with young women athletes and share their stories with several schools and women’s groups. These opportunities not only showcased the talents (on and off the soccer pitch) of these young leaders to local Ugandans and to the world, but it also sent the message that Ugandan girls and women are powerful. The communities GKI works with increasingly support female athletes. In an effort to build off of these programs in the long term, GKI invests in capacity building by training players to become coaches and by teaching soccer skills as well as accounting and management skills. We are currently training our top players as coaches to further organize women in the region. The skills learned through sports and our education project have supported more girls continuing their schooling and delaying early marriage. In the fall of 2009, GKI partnered with the United Nations Foundation in their Nothing But Nets Campaign. Thirty of our players were trained as bed net distributors in their community.
Problème
Girls Kick It uses soccer to tackle inequality between young women and men, and enable young girls and women to become empowered in their lives and in their community. Girls Kick It identified Northern Uganda as the location for its programs due to the effects the more than twenty-four year civil war has had on young girls and women. Tragically, the young girls and women of Northern Uganda have been in the crossfire of the war and have been brutalized, abducted from their homes and often forced to serve as wives or child soldiers within the Lords Resistance Army. These experiences have led to severe psychological stress and trauma. Unfortunately, for the girls and women living in Northern Uganda there are few opportunities for them to engage socially and economically. Therefore, through soccer, Girls Kick It provides healthy opportunities; both mental and physical, as a way to encourage self-empowerment, team-building, education and activism.
Actions
Through this program, the money generated from the sale of chickens to local hotels, businesses and nearby food markets would permit the team to pay for their team needs such as transportation to tournaments and practices, coaches’ salaries, equipment, refreshments and even school fees for themselves or their children, thus becoming self sufficient and less reliant on fundraising money from the U.S. Finally, the gweno house (or similar agri-business social enterprises) has the potential to be replicated and thus, enable economic opportunities to expand to other girls and women living in northern Uganda. We would also like to invest in the capacity of our players in staff through organizing additional skills courses in management, accounting and business.
The project will be established as a sort of cooperative, with profits returning to the women and they will decide how much individuals earn and how much the group takes. The project will survive through the efforts of the entire team. The women become both the owners and beneficiaries of the project.
Results
The expected results include GKI becoming a community sustained program. Players will utilize individual income at their discretion, however, they will be encouraged to invest the money in education or another economic investment. We would expect at least a 20 percent increase in GKI players in school and an improvement of the health of the players and their children. The players involved in the project will be able to utilize the management and accounting skills learned to eventually gain employment elsewhere in the region. The project will not only provide income, but also transferable skills. We hope business partnerships will evolve into program partnerships to further elevate the status of women and female athletes in the region.
What will it take for your project to be successful over the next three years? Please address each year separately, if possible.
The project will initially begin with 15 core members, of which there will be 4 lead members voted in by the larger group. These 15 will be trained in management and accounting skills. As the enterprise expands, new players will be trained. (Girls must undergo the training process in order to be a core or lead member). It will also be vital to have community buy in and support of the project. This will be done through community meetings and continued communication with families. After the first 3 months of start up (this includes the construction of the poultry house), we project earnings of 370 dollars per month. This will be divided among the girls with a portion reserved for GKI tournament and practice costs. Quarterly tournaments will be hosted in the region for all girls teams to compete. Poultry funds will be used to pay coaches, provide drinks and snacks and transportation. We anticipate that the project will be self-sustained after 15 months.
What would prevent your project from being a success?
There are several things that could hinder progress, namely if the price of chickens decrease (although prices have continually risen over the last 3 years) or the chickens were stolen from the poultry house, or some type of unforeseen natural disaster in the region. The community has major buy-in on the project and we do not foresee this as a serious possibility. The re-emergence of conflict in the region could also hinder progress, but the region has increasingly become stable with a long awaited transition to peace. We intend to stay ahead of the curve on market costs and work with the community to mitigate risks, including security.
How many people will your project serve annually?
101‐1000
What is the average monthly household income in your target community, in US Dollars?
Less than $50
Does your project seek to have an impact on public policy?
Viabilité
A quel étape votre projet en est-il ?
Étape conceptuelle
In what country?
Uganda, GUL
Is your initiative connected to an established organization?
If yes, provide organization name.
Global Youth Partnership for Africa
How long has this organization been operating?
Plus 5 années
Does your organization have a Board of Directors or an Advisory Board?
Oui
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with NGOs?
Oui
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with businesses?
Non
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with government?
Oui
Please tell us more about how these partnerships are critical to the success of your innovation.
Girls Kick It has had the opportunity to collaborate and partner with a number of American, international and local Ugandan organizations. Recently GKI partnered with the United Nations Foundation in organizing a malaria-related observation trip to northern Uganda in October of 2009. This observation trip had several key objectives for both the Nothing But Nets Campaign and United Against Malaria. The Foundation trained GKI players to teach community members the importance of bed nets and how to effectively prevent the spread of malaria.
GYPA and GKI have developed a strong relationship with the Homeless World Cup Foundation which works with grassroots projects in 65 countries around the world, using football as an outreach tool to build confidence, leadership skills and self-esteem among the homeless population. The HWC Foundation visited our program in the Fall of 2009 and the Spring of 2010, and we were once again asked to submit an application for the 2010 Female Homeless World Cup in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Locally, GKI has also partnered with the Uganda International Sports Academy located in Northern Uganda.
What are the three most important actions needed to grow your initiative or organization?
1: The funding to build the structure as well as the initial investments in poultry
2: Training by local business leaders for the women in accounting, accountability, sales and marketing
3. Continued support for the women as they build relationships with local hotels and restaurants
The Story
What was the defining moment that led you to this innovation?
Girls Kick It has reached out to hundreds of women and continues today as a community sustained program. Girls who had been raped and tortured step on to soccer fields that they had learned were only for men, and use soccer to push their minds and bodies further than anyone expect either to go. When Auma Ochien scored the winning goal for the Paicho Internally Displaced Persons Camp in our first regional tournament, her husband ran onto the field, lifted her into the air, yelling, "That’s my wife! My wife is a good footballer!” Auma had recently returned traumatized from years of captivity, and her husband’s pride in her success on the soccer field convinced him to allow her to return to school. Auma now hopes to run for her local council. Such incremental changes are first steps to strengthening women in their communities. Auma taught me that, when offered the resources and support, women can overcome tremendous adversity. This lead me to consider how women’s empowerment is not only a women’s issue, but a community issue.
GKI has worked with Ugandan men and women on the implementation and direction of the program, there is still a heavy reliance on US funding to run the project. When the team approached me about building a poultry house to help finance the program and their (and their children’s’) education, I immediately convened a meeting with the community, a local architect and business leaders. The chicken project would not only provide economic opportunities, but would train the women with the skills necessary to continue in entrepreneurial business.
Tell us about the social innovator behind this idea.
The team manager and team captain approached the Girls Kick It coordinator with the idea. The team wanted to utilize the group of women in the program and leverage their trust, ingenuity and collective strength to provide economic opportunities for themselves and their families. As one player said, “When given the choice, the father, the bread winner sends his son to school. If I become the bread winner I can send my daughter to school.” The chicken house allows these athletes the opportunity to truly finance, manage and create change in their community.
How did you first hear about Changemakers?
Friend or family member
If through another, please provide the name of the organization or company
Kevin Carroll
 | il y a 159 semaines Anna Phillips updated this Competition Entry. |
| il y a 159 semaines Anna Phillips submitted this idea. |