"Mawoito village is one of the many villages in Uganda that were affected by the HIV and AIDS scourge in the early 1990’s where so many families lost their breadwinners to the deadly disease.
The disease surfaced in the village as a result of people with the virus moving from the town to the village that begun having unprotected sex with their partners. During this period, there was a lot of stigma towards people with the virus and therefore deaths were so high during this period hence increased number of orphaned children. This therefore left many families with a large number of orphans and some of these orphans are also HIV positive.
The HIV disease has left so many people in this community in abject poverty to the extent that even the relatives to the deceased families are not in position to look after the orphaned children. This is as a result of the many financial resources spent on treating the patients and by the time one dies, a lot of money will have been spent on treatment of the patient.
The big number of orphaned children was left with no resources to use and this is more so on in the area of education. Since education gives hope for the future, we looked at it as the only means through which these orphans and vulnerable children can be helped so that they are able to sustain themselves in future. If these children are empowered mentally, they will be able to think for themselves and hence able to earn a living after having been empowered intellectually."