Communications Coordinator
The rebels came to our house that night. . .

Imagine: You hear men at the door one night. They drag your husband outside. As you watch through the window, they brutally kill him in cold blood. Then they move on to other houses.

Your nightmare has just begun. Leaving nearly everything but your baby behind, you flee in tears while you have the chance.

I know this is a brutal story. But it was the stark reality for Kasime, an adolescent mother from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) who was forced to flee her home last year amid rising violence.

Communications Coordinator
Helping Young Mothers Achieve Ongoing Success ...

Five years ago, Kalista had no hope for any kind of future. She had fled South Sudan’s civil war with her six younger siblings to the relative safety of Imvepi Refugee Settlement in northern Uganda. She escaped the violence of war. But sadly, at Imvepi she exchanged the threat of violence for the heartbreak of sexual exploitation.

Helping Young Mothers Achieve Ongoing Success through Aftercare
Communications Coordinator
Update: Uganda & Nigeria ...

As we reported in January, the enhanced agriculture training program we initiated last year in response to a growing hunger crisis within Imvepi Refugee Settlement produced remarkable results. A total of 200 adolescent girls participated. One of those students is Caroline. At harvest, her crop yield was more than impressive: 440 pounds of sorghum, over 600 pounds of maize, and more. Selling excess crops allowed her to buy clothes and bedding for her children, renovate her small thatched house, and purchase goats. And she has stored enough cereal grain to last her family until mid-May.

Update: Uganda & Nigeria April 2023
Communications Coordinator
Update: Uganda & Nigeria, January 2023

In Imvepi Refugee Settlement in northern Uganda, Africa’s hunger crisis was compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic as well as severe international food relief cutbacks. In response, we initiated a hybrid agriculture program designed to provide the youth we serve in Imvepi supplemental food relief, while also giving them the training, tools, and supplies they needed to grow their own food. Now we are thrilled to announce that the agriculture initiative has proved to be a resounding success – and your support made this possible!

Update: Uganda & Nigeria, January 2023
Communications Coordinator
SPOTLIGHT: THRIVE Project Volunteer Carolyn ...

If you had asked Carolyn Baldwin a few years ago whether she thought her sewing skills would someday help young women half a world away stay in school, she might have shrugged you off with a laugh. In fact, that’s more or less how she reacted when Krista Brown, ChildVoice Donor Relations and Outreach Coordinator, first approached her about volunteering to help make reusable menstrual pad kits for ChildVoice’s THRIVE Program.

SPOTLIGHT: THRIVE Project Volunteer Carolyn Baldwin

Overcoming Suffering: More than Conquerors

Overcoming Suffering: More than Conquerors

Uganda, a nation healing from deep traumatic suffering. A nation where 50% of its population is under the age of 15 because of previous massacres. A nation where everyone lived in constant fear of the rebel soldiers from the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) just 10 years ago. A nation where survivors recall terrors during the night. A nation where daughters were taken as child brides, women and children raped, husbands slaughtered with machetes in front of their families, kids handed guns and forced to shoot their parents, and thousands of people displaced from their villages and loved ones. 

Stories of Former Child Soldiers Shared from Uganda to D.C.

Stories of Former Child Soldiers Shared from Uganda to D.C.

Sitting under a mango tree at ChildVoice’s Lukome Center in northern Uganda, I listened to the stories told by ChildVoice counselors. One colleague told a sad war story which, much to my surprise, evoked many laughs. He must have noted my apparent confusion at the incongruous reaction and explained, “If we mourned all of those who died, we would die of sadness. Instead we laugh and tell their stories. This is how we honor them. It’s how we survive.”

Take a Stand to Stop Human Trafficking!

Take a Stand to Stop Human Trafficking!

By Presidential Proclamation, January is National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month, meant to shed light on the signs and consequences of this global tragedy. We at ChildVoice are all too familiar with the atrocities and abuses committed against young, vulnerable children who have been kidnapped or coerced into sexual slavery and forced labor. Here is the story of one such young South Sudanese girl, now at the Lukome Center, who was rescued from a childhood of prostitution.