Blog Updates and inspiration

“Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope. It is a tool for daily life in modern society. It is a bulwark against poverty and a building block of development, an essential complement to investments in roads, dams, clinics, and factories. Literacy is a platform for democratization and a vehicle for the promotion of cultural […]

While there are always plenty of smiles to go around at Invisible Children Uganda’s Functional Adult Literacy (FAL) graduation celebrations, Mauricio’s stood out. As chairperson for his savings group, Mauricio couldn’t be prouder of the successes he and his course mates reached upon the completion of the FAL curriculum. “Functional Adult Literacy has helped us […]

Invisible Children’s Livelihoods programs work directly with war-affected community members, many of whom never had the chance to receive a real education. Because of this, we create a curriculum to be shared with members of our Village Savings and Loans Associations in order to help them gain basic skills in reading, writing and mathematics. Heard […]

Many young people around northern Uganda are completing their academic programs and celebrating the end of the school term, but our celebration this week were all about a different group of learners. 993 members of Invisible Children’s Functional Adult Literacy Program were joined by their families and community leaders during two ceremonies held on Friday […]

ICU’s Livelihoods team has been visiting Village Savings and Loans Association (VSLA) groups in northern Uganda this week to deliver educational materials for our Adult Literacy program. The supplies support the programs’ mission of providing literacy, numeracy and writing training for members of VSLA groups. The materials include large pads of paper, chalk, tape and a chalkboard eraser. Each group […]

Last week the Livelihood team was busy preparing community facilitators to teach basic reading and numeracy skills to the 161 groups in Invisible Children Uganda’s Village Savings and Loan Associations program. Community facilitators are responsible for training the groups in savings, leading adult literacy classes and advising groups on starting up income generating activities. A […]

A graduate of the Functional Adult Literacy course signs her name to an attendance list after a meeting of their Village Savings and Loan Association. Before taking the literacy classes, many members of the group could only sign with a thumbprint. Now they can all write their names.

Many members of Invisible Children Uganda’s Village Savings and Loan Associations take on Income Generating Activities (IGA) to earn extra income. The groups meet every week to save money together. They pool their earnings and out of that are able to take out loans to start up IGAs like rearing poultry, keeping goats and cows, […]

Invisible Children doesn’t stop at documenting atrocities or activating youth or protecting civilians or rehabilitating post-conflict communities. We do it all. And we do it through a four-part model that focuses exclusively on the LRA conflict, addressing it in its entirety: immediate needs and long-term effects. One of the four parts of the comprehensive model is Recovery. […]

Patrick Ocan is a member of the Village Savings and Loan Associations group Pur Kwiri Alok, which has the optimistic meaning “there is no loss in farming.” Everyone in the group is a farmer. For many members of the group, life has been about survival. Completing an education had to be put on the back […]