About Us

7+ Years Years of Service

7+ Years of Experience

We Operate To Change The Life Of Teenage Mothers

GIRLS SUPPORT CENTER (GSC) is a Non-Governmental women-led Organization founded in 2019 by women with a zeal for community empowerment, in response to the gendered impacts of infectious disease outbreaks and their propensity to a huge death rate population — combined with widespread poverty that creates a staggering reality, where teenage mothers, victims of child marriages, women, youth, orphans and vulnerable children are left to fight for their survival, making them prone to abuse and exploitation.

In the midst of this devastating reality, the members of GSC see a biblical mandate and a viable means to respond to the suffering of “the least of these.”

The Organization developed a holistic approach which meets the Health, Education, Livelihoods and spiritual needs of the disadvantaged categories of people in Uganda to create normal change. We believe that the person who best understands the needs of the woman is the woman.

Why Soroti

Where The Need Is Greatest

Rationale

Soroti District — with focus on Kamuda Sub County, Aukot Sub County, Asuret Sub County and Soroti City — was selected as the project area because of the magnitude of the problem of teenage pregnancies and school dropouts.

Available statistics from the District Probation Office in Soroti indicate that 47% of the girl children are married before the age of 18. Several of these are forced marriages, resulting in teenage pregnancies and dropout of school. Social, cultural and gender factors in this area play a big part as well. 40% of girls in the age group 6–15 years are not attending primary school, which contributes to both their low literacy levels and their vulnerability to practices and activities that subject them to risks of teenage pregnancies.

Teenage pregnancies are culturally unacceptable and quite often result in the pregnant girls being thrown out of their homes by their parents. Some are married off at that tender age, or they end up living as street children or beggars, or as single teenage mothers — while others get overwhelmed by the responsibilities and resort to prostitution as an alternative source of survival.

Our Approach

Initially the project focuses on awareness building in the local environment, information about the Rights of the Child as well as the possible consequences of casual sex.

The intention is to enlighten the girls and make them understand the gender-based cultural challenges they face and encourage them not to accept the pitfalls, but to strive for better conditions.

GIRLS SUPPORT CENTER wishes to collaborate with the government and any non-government agency to contribute to the reduction of teenage pregnancies, early marriages and unemployed youth through our interventions.