Kasese District · Rwenzori Region · Western Uganda
GEDA Uganda works with rural women, girls and young people to take on climate shocks, gender-based violence and child malnutrition — through the people who live with them every day.
Teenage mothers
Tailoring and hairdressing training alongside nutrition education, so a young mother’s income and her child’s diet improve together.
Youth empowerment
Life and enterprise skills for adolescent mothers and out-of-school youth, pointed at decent, gainful and dignified work.
Nutrition & food safety
Iron-rich beans, orange-fleshed sweet potato and MUAC screening for children under five — plus consumer awareness where food is actually bought and sold.
Climate & environmental justice
Floods, mudslides and drought strip households of their footing, and women and girls carry the cost first. After the May 2020 floods we ran a needs assessment in Kasese and got emergency support to women and girls in the camps.
Trees & land
Tree planting and agro-ecology to hold the soil on the Rwenzori slopes — alongside efficient cooking stoves, heat-retention baskets and briquettes, so fewer trees come down for firewood.
The reach of our work since founding, across the four areas we report on.
Why we exist
6.1 births per woman among the Bakonzo population of Kasese — against a national average of 5.4.
Source: GEDA Uganda, About Us
GEDA Uganda was founded after media reports on escalating teenage pregnancy and child marriage in Kasese District. Behind the headlines sat a harder pattern: floods, mudslides and drought stripping households of their footing, and women and girls carrying the cost first.
Girls and women interact with the environment most — fetching firewood, cultivating the land — which places them closest to environmental degradation. So we work with them on alternatives: efficient cooking stoves, heat-retention baskets, briquettes.
On sexual and gender-based violence we use a “men engage” approach, alongside counselling and referral pathways, because protection that leaves men out does not hold.
And we work on food safety because the burden is measurable. Uganda’s Ministry of Health puts foodborne disease at roughly 1.3 million cases a year — 14 per cent of all cases treated — with typhoid, brucellosis, dysentery, cholera and aflatoxin contamination leading the list. We run consumer awareness meetings, trainings and workshops, and bring duty bearers, media and market leaders into the same room.
From the field · Nyangorongo village
“Before, I didn’t know where my next meal would come from. Now, I look at my child and know I can give her more than I had.”
Thematic areas
Research, learning and knowledge management runs across all four, and we leverage partnerships for synergy rather than duplicating what others already do well.
Nutrition & food safety
Nutrition and health interventions for children under five and for pregnant and lactating women, to reduce malnutrition — paired with a food systems and agro-ecology approach to food safety, including consumer awareness.
Climate & environment
Climate justice and access to efficient cooking energy technologies for women and girls, so households are less vulnerable to risk and more resilient to climate shocks.
Gender justice
Protection interventions and amplified voices for gender justice — so women and girls live dignified lives free from violence, with rights to sexual and reproductive health and to productive resources.
Youth empowerment
Life and entrepreneurship skills — especially green skills — for adolescent mothers, out-of-school youth and other vulnerable young people, toward decent, gainful and dignified work.
Give
Every amount is spent through the same programmes described above, run by staff who live in the district.
A tree to hold the soil on the Rwenzori slopes, where floods, mudslides and drought hit hardest — and shade and fuel for the household that tends it.
MUAC screening and MIYCAN nutrition counselling for a mother and her child under five.
A full place on the tailoring or hairdressing course that took Marion from no income to a weekly wage of her own.
Call +256 782 555 051 or email info@gedauganda.org and we will arrange it with you.
Work with us
For funders & foundations
We have delivered for FCDE and carried out assessment work for StrongMinds Uganda across nine districts.
For companies
Back a named cohort of teenage mothers or a climate-energy rollout, with reporting you can publish.
For volunteers & local partners
We work through partnerships rather than around them — including with FOSCU, Consent Uganda and Aces World.
Latest news
From the Better Nutrition for Children Under 5 Born to Teenage Mothers project, supported by FCDE: tailoring and hairdressing training, MUAC screening, and nutrient-dense crops in Nyangorongo village.
How vocational skills and nutrition education are being delivered side by side, so a young mother’s income and her child’s diet improve together.
Partners & funders
