The road through the ten years of VOLSET existence has never been smooth but we toiled and made it to our best as today we celebrate its tenth anniversary. VOLSET is a registered non-political, non-partisan, non-religious, non-governmental organization, and operates in the districts of Mukono and Luwero/Nakaseke.

MISSION:

The organization was started with its main mission of Alleviating Human Suffering caused by HIV/AIDS, disease and poverty in rural and less served communities.

OBJECTIVES:

·         To give opportunity to needy and orphaned children to acquire holistic education and the basic necessities of life

·         To create awareness on basic HIV/AIDS prevention, testing,  and HIV/AIDS-prevention services in isolated rural, islands and less served communities

·         Capacity building in the community to eradicate the vicious circle of poverty

·         To lobby  funds for acquiring a mobile clinic van and running other administrative cost

PROGRAMS focused on

• Advocacy and assistance to orphaned and needy children
• HIV prevention Services
• Community capacity building and empowerment 
• National and International volunteers network/involvement

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ACHIEVEMENTS of year 2007

The following are the achievements;

1. SPONSORSHIP OF ORPHANS AND NEEDY CHILDREN

This program encompasses sponsored children both in Mukono and Nakaseke districts. Through lobbying funds from international volunteers, Volset currently sponsors almost 80 children both in primary and secondary schools. Among these, 25 are mentored at the Volset house. These children receive psycho-social, moral, spiritual support from both local and international volunteers.

Beside sponsorship, we accessed a reading room for them, volunteers (Jeff/Kelley) donated treated mosquito nets to their beds and also  two friends from Vermont (Peter/Kate) installed a solar system to enable them utilize their time effectively by having evening preps.

A semi finished water harvesting underground tank is in place to reduce the overload especially during rain season for the children from fetching water

2. HIV/AIDS PREVENTION

HIV/AIDS prevention being our main focus, awareness and prevention and testing programs were carried out through different ways like drama for Nakaseke branch, seminars, workshops in the communities of Mukono Districts. Our main emphasis has been mainly the islands and the landing sites since are the areas that are hard to reach for one reason or the other. By the end of this year, we had outreaches in areas of Lwajje, Kimmi and Sowe Islands and the fishing campsites of Kiziru, Buwunga, Koome Island and Lulagwe. A number of outreaches were carried out and a total number of 1372 people have been tested in this year. 218 people were positive and this gave a percentage of 16 (16%) of people having HIV/AIDS

Health talks targeting youth in schools and out of schools have been carried out on a large scale emphasizing the ABC, self esteem and other life skills.

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Seminars have been organized to demonstrate to communities on the use and disposal of condoms, principle of being faithful to their partners and the importance of voluntary counseling and testing. Home care seminars have been carried out basically for people living with HIV/AIDS.

Also talks on creating awareness on basic health care, nutrition and sanitation on the islands and main lands.

Home visiting for people living with HIV/AIDS has been a continuous activity throughout the year and this has been done to provide psycho-social, spiritual and to some few clients’   medication and food have been given for one reason or the other.

More than seven hundred (from Jeff) and one hundred thirty five (friends from Ireland) mosquito treated nets have been given out to a priority of the HIV Positive, children below five years of age, and the old. This has been done in both districts of Mukono and Nakaseke.

Still we gave loans to 16 positive people at Lwaaje Island to start up small scale sustainable income generating activities. This drives us to a total of 32 people who have been given loans

3         COMMUNITY CAPACITY BUILDING AND EMPOWERMENT 

This program involves the computer and tailoring training, a subsidized commitment fee is charged on every trainee for maintenance of the machines. However, there has been less response from the community for these services. For the year 2006/7, only 8 participants attended bur only one complete the Introduction to Tailoring Skills and one student did computer training.

4.       MUSIC DANCE AND DRAMA (NAKASEKE DRAMA GROUP)

Five forum theatres (drama) about malaria control in pregnant women and children were performed by VOLSET Nakaseke drama group in the two districts of Luwero and Nakaseke. This program was funded by the John Hopkins University

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                        Below is a summarized Drama Presentation

5.       ADMINISTRATION:

VOLSET received a donation from two volunteers that improved on office security by fixing in stronghold windows and doors.

Optimistically, by networking with two UK friends of VOLSET, we still hold hopes of acquiring a motorized means of transport in order to improve on our performance especially in hard to reach communities. We were also able to acquire Internet for the office

 We had a two days capacity building seminar funded by   ANPPCAN and conducted by the district community development officers. This was done to identify and bridging gaps in the organizational management for effective delivery of services. 

A team of five VOLSET Staff managed for individual facilitation to go through Kenya, Nairobi and Mombasa visiting different organizations to share skills, experiences and also open up collaboration with organisations through which we can improve the performance in our services.

There has been at least one or more international volunteer per month from GVN or private volunteers which have made our work go smoothly and this has made a big achievement through sharing skills and experience especially in HIV section.

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§         SUMMARY OF THE ACHIEVEMENTS:

Ø      Acquired internet in the office saving frequent travels to Mukono in regard to accessing internet.

Ø      Volset staff Capacity building meeting imposed a positive influence in the documentation system.

Ø      Having carried out successful VCT outreaches in different communities

Ø      Tightening the office security.

Ø      Met rent for the peace corps volunteer accommodation and office at large

Ø      Sponsorship for the children

Ø      Gave loans to 32 PHAs on Lwajje Island AND Ntenjeru

Ø      Saved a nearly dead baby.

Ø      Continuous hosting of International volunteers from different countries.

Ø      Acquired a private monthly donation from USA family friends of VOLSET to assist in the running administrative costs.

Ø      Five forum theatre shows were conducted by Volset Drama Group in Nakaseke.

Ø      Mosquito net giving to communities.

Ø      Installation of solar system

§         CHALLENGES OF THE YEAR

Ø      Transport is one of the major setbacks for the organisation

Ø      Limited human resource

Ø      Some sponsors broke their commitments thus leaving children un-sponsored especially the secondary students.

Ø     Inadequate community mobilization for drama shows participation and poor attendance.

Ø      Frequent breakdown of  machines (Computers) makes much of work get on stand still

Ø      Limited funds hindered the smooth running of various activities especially the sponsorship program.

Ø      A large number of children especially the ones at the Volset home fall sick on and off with serious sickness more so during the night.

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RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE CHALLENGES

v     Lobbying of funding for administration running costs/salaries and  PLWHA loans

v     Up-dating children sponsorship Records.

v     Recruiting more sponsors to meet the overwhelming number of OVCs.

v     Improving on the methods of mobilization for the drama group presentations.

v     It is everyone’s responsibility to protect foreign storage devices and also not to tamper with computer’s programs that are not familiar with.

v     Need to have a clinic with a full-time nurse for immediate attention to the sponsored children and community

§     ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

       Volset Management appreciates the contribution and support from the following.

ð        The Real Uganda

ð        Children sponsors.

ð        Sophie Bright UK.

ð        Lebeouf  Family - USA

ð        Jeff and Kelley  Family USA

ð        Glen cooper and Christine Larsen -USA. 

ð        The Peace Corps- USA

ð        Vermont Friends of Volset

ð        ANPPCAN Mukono Branch

ð        Johns Hopkins University – Uganda

ð        Aussie Friends of Volset

ð        Volset-Germany (Under Dr. Anna and Rupp)

ð        Respective institutions where we have our children

ð        Kojja Health Centre - Ntenjeru

ð        Last but not least, the Volset Administration Team

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INCOME AND EXPENDITURE   -  FY 2007

Report Compiled by:

LYDIA NANSUKUSA

Programs/Accounting officer