The Challenge:

Thousands of children have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS in southwest Uganda. Worse yet, many have become the targets of rape and sexual abuse - some as young as 5 years old.

Living in extreme poverty, some of these young, brave survivors have contracted HIV from their perpetrators because they can't afford to pay $5 for medication that prevents transmission of the virus.

Without disrupting the cycle of trauma, vulnerability, and abuse, the devastating impacts to families and communities will continue to spread from generation to generation. 

The Opportunity:

Local Mental Health Support

Gratitude Alliance builds the capacity of local leaders to provide mental and emotional health support in their communities, equipping them with culturally relevant tools to identify and heal trauma, cultivate resilience, prevent violence, and break stigma. 

This summer, we'll be returning to the village of Kambuga to train local teachers and health workers to provide healing-centered care to survivors in the community, in collaboration with our longtime partner, Nyaka, an organization that educates, empowers, and transforms the lives of 40,000+ children, grandmothers, and community members across southwest Uganda. 

Economic Empowerment 

The local region boasts over 200 acres of forest land, filled with native Eucalyptus trees. Local villagers chop down the fast growing trees for firewood, yet discard the leaves.

This summer, we'll be conducting a feasibility study to determine whether the natural healing power of the local Eucalyptus plant can provide economic support to villagers.

The first step is to train the local community to distill the plant material into oil and test the oil for purity.  We can then develop a robust business plan to distill high quality, organic, fair trade Eucalyptus oil for use in products such as soaps, salves, lotions, cleaning products and more.

In 2019, we trained local students in basic emotional regulation skills

A local grandmother learns how to provide emotional first aid in our 2019 workshop

Video about Nyaka, our local partner in Uganda

Video about the work of Edja, a program of Nyaka, which supports sexual violence survivors. You can see clips of our 2018 community workshops in the trailer.