#JAFOA #Uganda #IGU Summit presentation done on October 19th, 2023 An update on the activities of the #UnityNet #Elders & #Seniors Network: #Hope for the #Elderly & #Orphaned #Children

1. Presentation on
Jehovah Alive for Old Age (JAFOA)
Interventions.
Presentation by
Gabriella L Malaika
Chief Executive Director
Email: algabbie@gmail.com
October 12th , 2023

2. 2
OUTLINE
Situational Analysis
Organisation Introduction
Core Program Areas/ Key Activities
Summary of achievements to date
What we have learnt
Opportunities
Challenges Encountered
Future Plans

3. 3
SITUATION OF OLDER
PERSONS AND OVC IN
UGANDA

4. 4
DEMOGRAPHY
• Uganda adopted the UN definition of older persons
as those aged 60 years and above.
• Older Persons (OPs) are one of the Special Interest
Groups (SIGs), recognized by the 1995
Constitution.
• Uganda’s population stands at 34,634,650
(17,060,832 males and 17,573,818 females) of
these, 4.1percent (609,072 are males and 794,336
are females) are aged 60 years and above.
• The just concluded National Housing and
Population census indicates that older persons
constitute 3.7% of the entire population of
34.6Million people (UBOS 2016).
ECONOMIC SITUATION;
• Majority of older persons are living in rural
areas where poverty is rife, economic
opportunities are limited, cases of elder abuse
based on gender and neglect are high, ill health
is common and health services are inadequate.
• About 85% of the active older persons are
engaged in crop farming with no social security,
rendering them totally vulnerable.
• Their economic situation is worsened by the
burden of looking after orphans and other
vulnerable children left by the youth who have
succumbed to the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
OLDER PERSONS

5. 5
SOCIAL SECURITY
• The National Social Security Fund (NSSF)
covers only a small percentage of the
workforce in Uganda.
• The empirical evidence reveals that only 7.1%
of older persons have access to pension, of
which 60% are males
• The few beneficiaries of pensions face
multiple difficulties in processing their
retirement benefits though the process has
now been decentralized and now pensioners
receive their benefits from the last point of
employment they served before retirement.
HEALTH
• Common health problems of the older
persons include hypertension, stroke,
diabetes, heart diseases, trachoma and
blindness that often lead to complications
and permanent incapacitation.
• Older persons can hardly afford the costs of
travelling to the health facilities at the sub-
district or in urban centres where they
could access the comprehensive Uganda
National Minimum Health Care Package
provided by the Health Sector
CONT.

6. 6
HIV/AIDS
• Older persons are sexually active, caretakers of
HIV and AIDS patients and many are sexually
assaulted.
• Lack of family support or approval of older
persons to marry leads them to secret sexual
engagement, which exposes them to HIV and
AIDS infection.
• Whereas Government has a strategic framework
for coordination and implementation of HIV and
AIDS interventions, most of them do not
deliberately target older persons
CONT.

7. 7
• Children constitute about 57.4 percent of
Uganda’s total population of 30.7 million people
(UNHS, 2009/2010)
• This amounts to an estimated 17.1 million
children below the age of 18 years, of whom 14
percent (2.43 million) have been orphaned, 45.6
percent (1,108,080) of the orphans are due to
HIV and AIDS and 105,000 children between the
ages of 0-14 are HIV positive.
• At least one in every four households has an
orphan and 3 million children live below the
poverty line(Situation Analysis 2010)
• Orphan-hood in Uganda remains a big
challenge with the proportion of children
that are orphaned increasing from 11.5
percent in 1999/2000 to 13.4 percent in
2002/2003 and 14.8 percent in 2005/2006,
although in 2009/2010, the magnitude
reduced slightly to 14 percent
• Child vulnerability is related to a wide
range of factors, including poverty, orphan
hood, weakness of family structures, child
labor, life in the streets, disability, and
disease, including HIV and AIDS.
ORPHANS AND VULNERABLE CHILDREN (OVC).

8. 8
• The protection of vulnerable children, and
girls in particular, is spotty and unreliable,
leaving children at great risk of abuse,
neglect and exploitation in a wide range of
settings such as homes and schools.
• Food security and nutrition are other cross-
cutting issues, closely linked to poverty and
marginalization, with direct and damaging
effects on children and their growth,
development and well-being
• Of female-headed households including
those of the older women, 35.5% are food
insecure and 38% of children aged 5 and
below are stunted due to child chronic
hunger
• Across the country, other factors, including Gender
Based Violence (GBV), conflict, COVID-19 pandemic,
displacement, rapid urbanization, economic
fundamentals, have contributed to child vulnerability
to; Child or forced marriages, Commercial Sexual
Exploitation (CSE); boys being involved in criminality
• In Uganda today, of the 8.1 million children under the
age of 18, more than half are living in situations which
present significant risk to their physical, emotional or
mental well-being and may result in their human rights
not being fulfilled or their human potential not realized
CONT.

9. 9
• In Northern Uganda, vulnerability stands at 80% (including Karamoja and West Nile); Out of
the 2.3 million children who are orphans, 38% are from the war-affected north and 46%
nation-wide due to AIDS.
• 1.76 million Children are engaged in child labour (Statistical Abstract 2008, Uganda Bureau of
Statistics, June 2008).
CONT.

10. OVERVIEW
WHO WE ARE
• JAFOA stands for Jehovah Alive of Old age. It is a
not for profit NGO established in 2016 in Uganda
and got its registration in 2017.
• JAFOA has a functional decision-making body.
• We have a secretariat responsible for the day to day
operations of the organisation headed by the
Executive Director.
Our vision: To have a society where Older persons,
Orphans and Vulnerable Children live healthy lives.
10
Our mission: To provide social,
spiritual, medical, economic and legal
support services to the helpless Older
Persons and the Orphaned Vulnerable
Children.
Our areas of operation
• Kayunga, Mukono& Wakiso
districts- Central Region
• Lira District-Northern Region
• Kumi District-Eastern Region

11. Description of our target groups
Older Persons
• The physically and mentally incapacitated; these are older persons who live in isolation
without any family or community support.
• The chronically sick; these are older persons who suffer incurable illnesses.
• The homeless; these are older persons who live in temporary make shifts in the
community.
• The widows and widowers; these older persons that have lost their spouses.
• Economically active poor. These are older persons who are economically active, but they
are not gainfully employed.
Needy Children
Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) aged between 4 and 24 years.
An orphan is that child that has lost one or both parents due to AIDS or other factors
11

12. A vulnerable child is one that lives outside family care (street) or marginalized, stigmatized
or discriminated against.
Needy children that live and cared for by the Older persons.
Collaborative partnerships
• Ministry of Gender Labour and Social Development (MGLSD)
• National Council of Older Persons (NCOP)
• Health Nest Uganda (HENU)
• Power of the Living Word Ministries London
• Madada Foundation
What is our mandate?
To address the social, spiritual, medical and economic needs of the Older Persons( Older
Women and Men) and Orphaned vulnerable Children under their care in Uganda
12

13. CORE PROGRAM AREAS/ ACTIVITIES
• Health care, hygiene and environmental
sanitation
• Psychosocial support (counseling,
recreational activities)
• Home visits and support of the older
widow woman.
• Child protection (access to social
services including formal education,
vocational skilling, healthcare, legal)
• Economic Empowerment (Education,
livelihoods &food security, human
rights, and Life Skills).
13

14. SUMMARY OF
ACHIEVEMENTS TO
DATE
14

15. 15
Free healthcare services Older persons through
outreaches/health camps

16. 16
Emergency Relief items to Older persons and Children
during COVID-19 Pandemic in 2020/2021.

17. 17
Emergency relief items such as Soap, salt, maize Flour
to the older persons in 2020/2021
JAFOA staffs and volunteers home visited the elderly people in Northern
Uganda-Lira District

18. Life skills training for Orphans & Vulnerable Children in Lira, in
a bid to reduce teenage pregnancy and child marriage
18
•

19. Improving shelter for the vulnerable older persons.
Through volunteerism, JAFOA volunteers roofed the huts of the older
persons in Lira District- Northern Uganda.

20. Support older persons households to improve incomes and food
security
20
JAFOA team supported older persons’ households with farming inputs. Now it is
harvesting time- ground nuts.

21. Environmental Preservations hence Tree planting
activities with older persons
21

22. What
Have
we
Learnt
22
• Meeting the welfare of children is everyone’s
responsibility
• Participation must be inclusive, avoid existing patterns of
discrimination, and encourage opportunities, for
marginalised children both girls and boys and Older
persons to be involved
• Partnership is strength; and engaging key stakeholder in
implementation is a way of synergising resources.
• Many OVC in Uganda are cared for by the Older persons.
• Older persons are identified susceptible or vulnerable to
Elder abuse, neglect but still less prioritized in government
programming and budgeting.

23. CHALLENGES FACED
• Inadequate resources for effective
programming of friendly interventions
• Increased rates of child marriages, teenage
pregnancy, school dropouts, elder abuse and
neglect amidst COVID-19Rate of girls
dropping out of school is too high. This is due
to gender based violence in our communities.
htttps://www.monitor.co.ug/Uganda/news/national
/23-000-girls-impregnated-in-lango-in-one-year-
ngo-3573252.
• Increased demands for age-friendly social
services like healthcare, livelihood
opportunities among others
• High poverty levels within the households of
the Older persons/caregivers of the OVCs.
• Inadequate CSOs advocacy efforts to the
implementation of policies and programs that
target Older persons by Government of
Uganda.
23

24. • A conducive political environment/political stability in the country.
• Uganda has good sites for tourists
• Existence of different CSOs platforms and networks for information, knowledge and
experience sharing
• Existence of national and international legal frameworks on Older persons and Children.
• The existence of a wide range of international donors and humanitarian agencies with potential
to support Older persons and children related development programmes.
• Our good working relationship with the Uganda Government line ministries, District Local
Governments, communities and different NGOs in the country.
• Good hospitality by Ugandans.
24
OPPORTUNITIES

25. 25
 Mobilize Resources for effective planning,
implementation, monitoring and evaluation of
programs.
 Community Empowerment and engagement to
respond to concerns of elder abuse and neglect
 Create and strengthen strategic partnership both
at local, national and global levels for
information and expertise sharing and resource
mobilisation.
 Support formal education for poor OVC; provide
vocational education for out of school OVCs
within the care of Older persons.
 Improve access to age friendly healthcare
services for Older persons and their
grandchildren
 Improve strategic planning
 Capacity strengthening of our human
resource for improved service delivery.
 Establishment of standard homes for the
older persons with caregivers to live
better life.
 Establishment of recreational centres for
older persons to foster social interactions.
 Establishment of psychosocial centers
that is counselling centers
 Create a conducive place for international
partners to come for joint work.
FUTURE PLANS

26. 26
JAFOA Executive
Director home
visited and Older
person for
emotional therapy
PHOTO GALLERY
Member of Parliament for the Older
persons leading the National Council
leadership at the World Elder Abuse
Awareness Day

27. 27
JAFOA Director met a
group of vulnerable
children to generate their
needs and concerns

28. Together with you, we
transform societies.
Thank you for your time!
Feel free to Contact us:
+256775074863