Wednesday Afternoon: Women Helping Women

The WCCC group and the BAN team meet for lunch.  

A local woman makes gravel by braking rocks with a small hammer.  She works from sun-up to sun-down for less than a dollar per day.  Many women supported by the WCCC have lost their husbands to HIV/Aids and they are themselves HIV positive.  They are the only breadwinners in their families.

After our wonderful visit to Great Challenge School, we loaded back into the van to drive about 30 minutes to another part of Kampala.  We went to a local hotel to meet, Mrs. Moureen Serwanga, the founder of the Women Caring and Counselling Centre (WCCC).  This centre evolved out of a need to support women in difficult situations in the community.  WCCC's mission is to educate, support, counsel, empower and fight against drug and alcohol abuse, social, economical, family health, emotional and poverty challenges faced by both women and youth.  They provide support for local initiatives like paper bead making.  Beads and jewellery are sold locally to provide income for the family and internationally for use in our Buy-a-Net fundraising efforts.  The monies raised by Canadian fundraising is then filtered back into the communities through net distribution.  Helping one women to find work, not only means that she can support and feed her family, but she also supports the entire community.  The centre provides support in the form of income generation, provision of school fees so that the neediest children can get an education, and malaria and HIV/Aids awareness and prevention.  Moureen was joined by her husband Moses, a strong supporter of the WCCC, and about 20 local women supported by the centre.  A lovely lunch was enjoyed by all as we shared stories about friends, family and work, with these women.