Child’s i Foundation has received a grant from the Martin James Foundation (MJF) to implement a two-year project; “Demonstrating Community led Alternatives to Orphanages”.

The main aim of the project is to strengthen and create a professional community of foster care and kinship care through work with selected organisations that will enable through practice, the review and approval of the National Foster Care guidelines.

It is anticipated that the project will develop and recommend models of best practice across three districts – Masaka, Mpigi and Wakiso – that will serve as learning resources be used to raise national awareness of alternative care in Uganda and the region.

In the project supported by MJF, Child’s i Foundation with the technical support of the Ministry of Gender Labor and Social Development will identify and assess 120 potential foster carers, and submit 90 for approval.

The project will collaborate with 6 civil society organisations who will be supported to document and demonstrate alternative care models in their practice to support the Government of Uganda to consider approval of the National Foster Care Guidelines.

Throughout the duration of the project, good practices, lessons learned and contextual adaptations, from the 6 organisations, will be documented for sharing with the government as case studies to demonstrate contextual practice in the manuals.

Learnings gained from this collaboration will be used to develop foster care/kinship model(s) and tools to capacitate other organisations (outside of the project consortium of six organisations) with knowledge and skills in foster care, kinship care and safeguarding.

In Uganda, Child’s i Foundation has consistently worked with various stakeholders and communities on child protection and safeguarding programs. In the proposed project it is anticipated that the initiatives will contribute towards positioning both foster and kinship care with an appropriate and meaningful name to the stakeholders and communities.

At community level we promote alternative care through the promotion of foster care and kinship care through thriving networks with parents (carer-led)/peer educators and leaders within their communities where it delivers programs.

At district level, we collaborates with the Directorate of Community Based Services, the Government of Uganda unit responsible for providing oversight to the work of all actors implementing community-based programs.

We are grateful to Martin James Foundation for their generous support towards our foster care, specifically in advocacy and capacity building to demonstrate impactful yet cost effective models of alternative care in Uganda.