THRIVEGulu
Empowering at-risk and in-need adolescent girls
Location: Uganda
Sponsors: Ann McStay and Brad Smith
THRIVEGulu: New Grantee 2022-23
Founded in 2010, THRIVE helps Northern Ugandans and refugee communities from South Sudan heal from the traumatic effects of war, gender-based violence, displacement, and extreme poverty. Thrive currently works in a newly-established settlement camp zone, where the refugees have received fewer NGO interventions than in the more-established zones.
Refugee youth experience numerous disadvantages that adversely affect their economic stability: lack of education, limited access to information, and language barriers. Girls are also at high risk of gender-based violence. For at-risk and in-need adolescent girls, THRIVE conducts Girl Shine (GS) programs in which the girls are empowered through training in safety skills, sexual and reproductive health, peer-to-peer support networks, and increased confidence. However, the GS curriculum does not provide any economic empowerment programming.
THRIVE will pilot an extension of Girl Shine, an innovative financial literacy and business curriculum, to equip the adolescent girls with practical skills for household financial security and help them develop individual business plans for entrepreneurial success. Thrive will introduce a novel economic empowerment model using a manual published in Acholi (the local Ugandan language), Juba Arabic (South Sudanese), and English. Thrive will gather information on the girls’ needs, questions and challenges, and include these concerns in stories that will provide the substance of the curriculum. The stories will explain complex concepts like saving, investing, and budgeting, while reflecting the realities of the local context. The girls will then be coached in developing a business plan and creating a micro-enterprise that will increase their income and financial stability.
For more information, see: https://thrivegulu.org/
GRANT SUMMARY AND PURPOSE
2022-23: A $30,000 grant will help fund the design, drafting, translation and publishing of the manual for business success; train business success coaches; teach the curriculum to Girl Shine Groups; and monitor small business activities after the girls have completed the program. This training and accompanying coaching will lay the foundation for developing successful entrepreneurial micro-enterprises which will increase the girls’ incomes and help to bring them out of poverty.
IMPACT
Refugee girls have tremendous enthusiasm for knowledge and skills that will empower them to take charge of the well-being of their households, paving the way towards a brighter future. There is no comparable program for South Sudanese refugee youth that addresses both financial literacy and business success to help them overcome the poverty they face. Thrive’s manual, based on the lived experience of their beneficiaries, will provide Girl Shine members with knowledge and skills, as well as confidence and motivation, to either begin or improve a micro-business. After learning from the pilot, Thrive plans to update, improve and expand the program to other settlements, and to share the manual and program with other NGOs working with refugees.
