Our Volunteers
In line with our aim of encouraging self-sufficiency and building skills locally, we currently employ local staff and involve and encourage volunteers as much as possible. We believe in volunteers and staff collaborating across the organization in every area of our work. The enormous range of skills, experience, and expertise our volunteers bring continues to make us stronger. We develop and learn from one another to shape our work. We constantly encourage the enthusiasm and ambition of our volunteers so that, together, we can create lasting change for children, and the communities they live in.
PMF is working on an ‘international volunteer program’ that will establish engagements with the international community to share and invite needed well-wishers to help foster our campaign.
Work:
The work performed by volunteers at some of our projects ranges from renovations, construction, painting, environmental conservation, HIV/AIDS awareness, poverty reduction campaigns, girl child education, culture of peace education and many community service activities aimed at meeting our goal towards youth empowerment and community development.
Study sessions:
With a local touch blended with an international awareness, our subject matter experts routinely equip all our volunteers with knowledge on important issues such as poverty, human rights, conflict resolution, cultural diversity, HIV/AIDS, democracy, gender, fair trade, environment and sustainable development, etc. study sessions and excursions in a concept of living, sharing experiences, and cross cultural cooperation.
Capacity building:
Much of our work goals are executed by youth and adult volunteers from within the communities we visit. There is nothing more enabling than making the people you’re fighting for feel and see the importance of their contribution in the circle. As we go along, we learn that many people struggling economically are often left out, denied opportunities, and their voices not heard. PMF provides this platform. We train and create an environment of learning by sponsoring study programs and workshops before our confirmed volunteers set out to the field. All confirmed (full or part time) volunteers get specific extensive trainings on the subjects relating to the projects at hand.
Our Scope:
We aim to empower children while creating an economically enabling environment for their parents or guardians. The potential of many children in rural and peri-urban neighborhoods remains locked out of full realization; while our mandate is to seek out such children across Uganda. We are currently actively working with several schools in impoverished communities in the Eastern District of Jinja. This was formerly the industrial powerhouse of the country but the eventual shift in government priorities renders the region more of a sleeping giant. Walukuba and Masese are at the epicenter of this seemingly inescapable condition. On an empty stomach, children walk long distances bare-footed to reach the nearest school. Most of them without required school uniforms, are unable to study for the whole day because meals are not served at school; not mentioning the majority who join the human refuse pile each year as their parents are unable to sustain them through school.
Securing the future of these communities rests upon the shoulders of these children; through our partners and local initiatives, we raise resources to run community sensitization campaigns, create awareness about the future value of a child currently in school, engagement with local leaders, provide scholastic materials, shoes and school tuition fees for children in these communities. We also remain at the forefront of championing the need for the ‘girl child’ to get the same quality and amount of education, the need to stay in school even during her monthly period without being embarrassed. It remains our vision to have children from these communities equipped with the skills and tools to break the vicious cycle of insufficiency.
