Safe Haven

Safe Haven Africa is a nonprofit organization in Uganda. We Work to provide vulnerable teenage mothers with opportunities to succeed as the mothers and the leaders that God has called them to be. They learn to lead their families and communities through spiritual discipleship and economic empowerment programs. We envision a world where every teenage mom can reach and tap into their full potential and become spiritually empowered and economically independent. We envision young women who can fully contribute to their own lives, their families, and communities and nation.

Our objective is to extend our outreach to serve more young women. We are believing God to acquire land for a larger facility, enabling us to reach, protect, and prepare more than double the young moms we currently serve.

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WHY WE EXIST

Teenage pregnancy has existed in Uganda for several decades. According to UBOS 2018,
Almost 25 percent of Ugandan women aged 15-19 have given birth or are pregnant with their first child by the age of 18. The 2020 national survey on violence revealed that over the last 45 years, more than half of the girls have experienced childhood sexual abuse, which may also explain the unchanging level of teenage pregnancy. (UNICEF 2021)In 2022, there was a marked increase in teenage pregnancy in 67 out of the 136 districts in the country. (UNFPA 2021) The period of March through September 2020, when schools in Uganda were partly closed due to Covid19 lockdown, registered a 366% increase in the pregnancies among 10–14-year-old girls. (UNICEF 2021)
The numbers of teenage pregnancy were highest in districts of Wakiso (10,439) Kampala, (8,460), Kasese (7,319), Kamuli (6,535) and Mayuge (6,205) (UNFPA). Teenage pregnancy accounts for 22.3% of school dropouts among girls 14-18 years. Only 8% of the girls that drop out of school are given a second chance to enroll (MoES,2020). Teenage pregnancy has far reached implications not only for the girls themselves, but also on their children, their families, and society at large. It denies girls their childhood, disrupts their education, limits opportunities, increases their risks of violence and abuse, and has profound effects on the health and lives of young women (UNFPA 2020).
28% of maternal deaths occur among young girls (15-25 years). Young people are responsible for 34% of new HIV infections annually. In 2021, about 32,566 teenage girls became pregnant monthly, an equivalent of 1,052 daily. About 250 children aged below 15 years got pregnant monthly (UNFPA 2021). The harsh reality is that many teenage mothers in Africa have been left to bear the burden of sexual abuse, poverty, domestic violence, and single parenthood at a very early age in life. Millions of these young moms have been abandoned and robbed of all dignity and childhood. They are undereducated and even unemployable and are left to suffer alone in this world. Most parents do not want to associate with an unmarried, pregnant girl and they end up forcing these young girls to live with their abusers, even rapists, hence child marriages.
But Safe Haven Africa is changing this, by providing counseling services, discipleship, literacy and numeracy classes, business skills, training, and job opportunities for vulnerable teenage mothers in Uganda. As we embrace these young moms with God’s love, they find hope and purpose for their lives. We come alongside vulnerable teenage moms in our communities, bring them to our Training center, for a residential six-month training program. We work with them to find practical, sustainable solutions to meet their basic needs. Part of this includes training them in various vocational courses, business classes and job opportunities necessary to earn a decent living.

Contact Safe Haven

Wakiso Kasengejje Rd
PO Box 24991 Kampala UG
gladysnassanga@gmail.com
prjoram@gmail.com

TAILORING

Each Mom is provided with a tailoring machine, materials and different sewing supplies needed for classes. They are taught from scratch, how to peddle and thread the machine, measure, and cut materials using different designs, until they can produce quality clothes and fashions. We teach the girls basic skills, provide them with valuable experience and give them the understanding of how to start and run their own businesses.

Baking

In the baking class, the moms learn in groups and individually, since we can’t provide each of them with their own baking machine. They are equipped with practical knowledge of baking a wide range of products: including cakes, cookies, bread, daddies, doughnuts, and many more pastries.
The moms are taught every step involved, from reading recipes, to going to the market where they buy ingredients, to learning how to operate and use an oven, to whisking ingredients by hand and to using a commercial mixer. They learn a variety of cake types and how to ice them with different types of icings.
Learning to make doughnuts, mandazi, bread, cookies, and pies and many other items makes them stand out in the job market. After training, these moms can start up their own confectionery shops, and can also find employment in any of the already established confectionery stores.

WEAVING

After doing a market survey, we discovered that many people are embracing beautiful crafts as decorations in their homes. This makes the demand for weaved crafts high. In our Weaving classes, we can get passionate and qualified trainers who take moms through the following steps, from going to the garden to get riddles, then to the market where they buy raffia and colors, then cooking and mixing the colors, and finally how to weave different pieces of different designs.Each piece created is special and designed to suit the demand of the customers. The moms learn to make tablemats, wall hangings, baskets, laundry bags, and much more. After the training, the moms can design and weave any pattern to customer’s satisfaction. We found this to be a business that is easy to start. Most of the items needed to weave can be made locally by the moms. The fact that they can work from home while attending to their children makes it more convenient.

Counseling

By the time these moms come to Safe Haven, they are psychologically broken because of trauma, abuse, rejection, resentment, and domestic violence. Besides practical skills, they need emotional healing, and this is where counseling comes in. The counseling sessions are intended to restore and uplift them. Counseling is done to help moms get over their past trauma and emotional breakdown. This helps them to build their self-esteem, restore their hope and dignity and position them for a brighter future.