Empowering Rural Widows with New Skills
Bukonzo East & West Widow Farmers Association (BEWWFA) is an umbrella organization of widows registered and operating in Bukonzo County, Kasese District, Western Uganda, East Africa
Empowering Rural Widows with Practical Skills
Bukonzo Widows is dedicated to uplifting women who have lost their husbands by offering vital skills that foster independence and sustainable livelihoods in rural communities.
Empowering Widows: Skills and Support
We offer the following services
Vocational Skilling
This activity aims at providing basic occupational skills to widows and orphans in tailoring, knitting, weaving, soap making, art & design. Widows and orphans are trained and provided with start-up kits to start small-scale enterprises
Modern Agricultural practices
We offer specialized training in agricultural activities to various widow groups. These activities include: poultry, piggery, horticulture, rabbit keeping, Mushroom farming, goat rearing, bee keeping, aquaculture, coffee farming, cereal growing, processing, and marketing. We set up demonstration farms where widows learn easily by doing. You may sponsor an activity and help to improve the livelihood of widows
Environmental Conservation
We do not only cause awareness about environmental conservation strategies, proper waste management, and climate Justice, but also involve in nursery bed preparation and tree planting programs.
Lobbying & Advocacy
We locate and tap local and external resources and opportunities to widows. We advocate for inclusive decision making, economic justice, gender equality and equity. We cause awareness about violation of widows’ rights such as disinheritance, stereotyping, inhuman cultural practices, and discrimination against widows and orphans.
Savings & Credit Scheme
We encourage widows to form and join widows Savings and credit schemes.
Widows are encouraged to save as low as 5% of their weekly incomes.
The main challenge with this program is that the sources of income of widows are not reliable. Some depend on provision of causal work. To solve this challenge widows need to be engaged in various reliable income sources. Your investment in any one of our activities will boost widows’ income and savings
HIV/AIDS Awareness
We help communities and individuals to be aware of the modes of AIDS transmission, preventive measures, effects of HIV/AIDS, guidance and counselling to victims and non-victims of HIV/ AIDS. We also solicit for nutritional support to widows living with HIV /AIDS. We currently have 50 widows living with HIV/AIDS. They have declared their status and are seeking for psychological and physical support
Building Orphanage Schools
To ensure proper and holistic education of orphans BEWWFA intends to establish and maintain at least one complex school in a constituency and at least a primary school in a sub county. Your donation in this activity will help to avail affordable holistic education to orphans. currently we are partnering with Momentum Holistic Education Aid – Kasese and we are partially sponsoring 20 orphans at Momentum Nursery and Primary school, Kasese Municipality.
Peace & Justice
We equip widows with conflict resolution skills that enable them to solve domestic violence cases in a peaceful and just approach. This is done in form of seminars and radio talk shows
Grief Processing
We currently use four strategies to help widows heal from the grief of losing the loved spouses: Healing SMS, Personal Visits, Widow Retreats, and Intergroup Visits.
Healing SMS: BEWFA composes and sends healing messages via phone to newly widowed women who voluntarily accept. We have a team of widows who have successfully healed from grieving that are dedicated for this work. You may help by buying SMS bundle monthly at as low as $10.
Personal visits are made to newly widowed women by a team of experienced widows who take time with the Grieving widows and share experiences and advice. These experienced widows (wellness practitioners) are first trained on grief processing strategies and nutritional support. Training one wellness Practitioner requires as low as $100. You may donate to sponsor the training of wellness practitioners.
Intergroup visits: Widow Groups visit each other periodically and perform certain activities together during the day. Each member of the hosting group welcome one or two visiting widows to their homes for a night. This arrangement helps to an opportunity for deep sharing and healing from grief amongst widows. This activity needs transport and feeding costs. You may sponsor one intergroup visit at as lows $500.
Widow Reteats: This is a special seminar where widows from all member groups come together for 2 – 3 days to receive lessons on grief processing and sharing widowhood life experiences. Life changing and hope inspiring films are watched together during these retreats. One retreat requires at least $3000 for feeding and accommodation. You may bring hope in lives of widows by sponsoring at least one retreat.
Empowering Widows Through Skills Empowerment
Explore our handcrafted goods created by resilient women, featuring unique items and exclusive offers to support their journey.
Handwoven Baskets
UGX 30000
Natural Soap Bars
UGX 5000
Goat Meat
UGX 20000 per Kg
Vegetables
UGX 10000
Empowering Women to Build New Futures
Reach out to Bukonzo Widows through our community center, phone, or email to learn more about our vocational training and sponsorship programs.