Action for youth development Uganda (ACOYDE)

About us

Action for Youth Development Uganda (ACOYDE) is an indigenous Not for Profit, youth community-driven and advocacy organization that focuses on adolescents and young people through working with citizens and community-based organizations to influence issues, policies, young people’s challenges at grassroots, local, national governance and development processes. ACOYDE was founded in 2010 and became operational in 2014. ACOYDEs head offices are in Mbarara District, South Western Uganda
ACOYDE works with girls and young women in rural and refugee communities to ensure girls are free to reach their full potential through education, advocacy, lobbying and influencing policies to end child marriages.

Our vision
A vibrant, healthy and productive generation.

Our mission
To promote a fair and sustainable environment where adolescents and youth have a right to life. Through transformational leadership, empowerment, community driven approaches, advocacy Mobilization, coordination and networking to create freedom of choice and transform their lives.

Our goals:
• To protect and promote human rights, social accountability, transparency and fight corruption among vulnerable young people by promoting policies that protect their wellbeing.
• To end child marriages and teenage pregnancies among adolescent girls through the amplification of voices of girls at risk of child marriages and defend girl’s rights to health, education and create opportunities to their fully potential.
• To promote sexuality education and Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) among young people.
• To promote social-economic skills through entrepreneurship training and financial literacy knowledge.
• To promote gender and climate change justice through awareness creation and promotion of green based technologies.
• To improve ACOYDE’S coordination, communication, and joint efforts among the youth organization and stakeholders.

Projects:
• CHACHA Social Action Project: ACOYDE is currently implementing CHACHA Social Action Project aimed at equipping communities with social economic skills. CHACHA Banana Fiber Enterprise is the social Venture enterprise established in 2015 in Mbarara District in Uganda. CHACHA Banana Fibre Social Enterprise is a value chain addition to banana stems through extraction to produce banana fibre which is later used for craft production i.e. door mats, pillows, interior decorative items, wall hangers, bags, shoes and which results into production of environmental eco-friendly and biodegradable thus a solution to climate change. CHACHA Social enterprise operates in Mbarara District; it engages young people especially women to earn a living for their families. CHACHA vision is “A world of green Environment” and its mission is to “Create, train, and build capacity for young people to produce eco-friendly and biodegradable products”. ACOYDE also promotes Green gardens in schools with the aim of improving pupil’s nutrition, reduce malnourished problems, Climate change adaptation and conserve the environment.
• Girl Talk Leadership Clubs: To advocate for the girls in School and out of school. This has helped girls to make better choices and stay in schools; girls are equipped with social economic skills to manage menstruation periods and sanitation problems, life skills and leadership skills.
• Health Young Women Budgeting: ACOYDE in partnership with Her Voice Global Fund are implementing a project on Health Young Women budgeting to the realize Uganda's FP2020 commitments, in particular reducing unmet need for family planning and implementation of social and behavior change campaigns to increase demand and uptake of family planning with a special focus on youth and women. Through this project, we realized increased interaction between parents and their adolescent children on issues including sexually transmitted diseases and contraception. We have continued to advocate for universal access to family planning, including youth at national and local government levels through the different networks and coalitions that we partner with.

Caroline Owashaba is the Executive Director of Action for Youth Development Uganda (ACOYDE).

For other net participants we can offer overnight facilities and an expert guidance through trained staff, procure expert information and establish new contacts in the field of our work.