ACU student works with communities in Uganda

My name is Anne-Marie Reddan and I am 22 years old and currently enrolled in my final year of a Bachelors Degree in International Development at ACU Melbourne. Over the past six years I have spent a large proportion of each year fully immersed in local communities in Uganda, East Africa, living with a local family whilst volunteering in a number of diverse Ugandan-run organisations. These experiences gave me a clearer understanding of where my passions and talents could be put to best use, and it also enriched my understanding of how successful and sustainable projects in Uganda are implemented and managed.

In 2013 I partnered with a group of passionate Ugandans to register a NGO called ‘Yimba Uganda’ with the aim of ‘creating a society of empowered young people, who are economically independent, socially responsible and effectively participating in the sustainable development of their own communities’. Together we have implemented a number of programs throughout Uganda, run by our incredibly motivated and passionate Ugandan staffing team. Currently we are investing in three main programs, which include our ‘Female Sanitation Program’, our ‘Tailoring, Fashion and Design Program’ and our ‘Rural Empowerment Program’.

The inspiration for our Female Sanitation Program arose when I was volunteering within a youth program and I discovered that girls were often using leaves, mattress foam and even pages from their textbooks as an alternative to sanitary pads. Our Female Sanitation Program provides roughly 100-150 young women access to easily washable, quick drying, discrete sanitation packs, which provide girls with 180 days of education, safety, dignity and empowerment in their first three years of use! We also run a number of sanitation workshops within local communities, in an attempt to educate and sensitize the wider community on menstrual hygiene and eliminate any associated stigma.

Our ‘Tailoring, Fashion and Design Program’ is the first of our vocational training programs. This program is made for 10 students and runs for nine months, providing students with tailoring, design, and business and entrepreneurship skills. As a majority of our students dropped out of formal schooling, the objective of this program is to provide our students with a new career opportunity, empowering them to be economically independent and allowing them to fulfill their dreams. This program works in partnership with our ‘Female Sanitation Program’ and the students create ‘female hygiene packs’ to pay off a sewing machine which they can keep at the end of the program. This also allows them to play an instrumental role in the development and empowerment of females in the local communities.

Finally we have our ‘Rural Empowerment Program’, which is now 100% self-sustainable and locally run by women in the village. This program provides women with livestock to enhance their understanding of the importance of investment and obtaining a long-term vision, but also providing them with the capital that they need to support their families. This program has been unimaginably successful thus far.

Whilst I am based in Australia I continue to raise awareness and support for our programs in Uganda. I spend a large amount of time fundraising, running cultural exchange programs in community groups and primary schools and conducting presentations.

In 2016 I will be moving to Uganda full time, whilst also completing a Master’s degree in ‘International Development Practice and Community Development’ online.