Food for Peace: Cultivating Unity & Economic Empowerment in Northern Uganda
In the Adjumani settlements of northern Uganda, thousands of South Sudanese refugees from 64 different tribes live side by side with Ugandan host communities. These tribes, many with deep-seated historical tensions, have been forced together by the civil war that began in 2013. Decades of animosity have fueled violent inter-tribal clashes, leaving families vulnerable and communities fractured.
Food for Peace is a transformative initiative that harnesses the power of agriculture and entrepreneurship to build trust, economic stability, and peaceful co-existence. By bringing together refugee and host community women to cultivate land, develop off-farm businesses, and strengthen leadership skills, Food for Peace fosters collaboration that leads to lasting change.
Addressing Food Insecurity and Economic Hardship
Food insecurity in these settlements is worsening. The World Food Program has steadily reduced rations, which once provided $10 per person per month, now cut to just $5.40, with further reductions anticipated in 2025. Women, often the sole providers for their families, struggle to access opportunities to generate income, leaving them in an ongoing cycle of poverty and vulnerability. Food for Peace offers a sustainable solution by growing fast-yielding, high-market-value crops such as okra, tomatoes, beans, jute mallow, leafy cabbage, and maize.
From Farm to Market: A Full-Circle Approach
Food for Peace’s long-term goal is to include value chain development through agri-processing and local production, plus equipping women with skills to launch microbusinesses. Utilising the Street Business School program, participants receive entrepreneurship training from SPEAK Uganda’s certified trainers, empowering them to market their products and build sustainable livelihoods.
Women as Leaders of Change
Recognising the need for women’s voices in leadership, Food for Peace integrates a civic leadership development program. The initiative encourages women to take part in local leadership, form discussion groups, and challenge the long-standing belief that they cannot be leaders. By fostering these skills, the program strengthens community resilience and promotes long-term peace.
Support Food for Peace
This initiative is more than an agricultural project—it’s a peace-building movement that equips women with the tools to feed their families, generate income, and foster unity among diverse communities. With your support, we can expand Food for Peace to empower even more women, increase food security, and create lasting reconciliation in northern Uganda.
About SPEAK Uganda
SPEAK is a refugee-led non-profit, humanitarian and youth oriented, peace building organization aimed at improving peaceful co-existence through innovative local engagement, livelihood, peace education, and preservation of natural resources among the refugee and host communities.
South Sudan is a home to 64 unique tribes. Most of these tribes have a long history of animosity. When the civil war broke out in December 2013 these people who have negative stereotypes against each other, were forced to live in shared refugee camps in northern Uganda. In recent years there have been deadly inter-tribe and inter-clan attacks, torching and killings, which again added another layer of conflict as the host communities were also caught in between. In 2018 there were over a dozen homes burnt down in Ayilo I and Nyumanzi Refugee Settlements in clashes that involved both refugees and host communities.
SPEAK understands that the best sustainable way to peaceful co-existence is by connecting people from different tribes clans and communities to talk and unlearn the historical negative assumptions against each other. Through their Peace Caravans they brought people together to talk. It was often the first time they had ever spoken to each other, and they have seen decreases in clashes after they ran these sessions. They further support the shared groups through livelihood activities to promote the spirit of working together to provide for their families while building trust.
As opposed to the way many peace building programs are designed, they focus on the dynamic down-up approach in which the process is co-designed with the local actors and the community. They also engage and train the youth in skills that help them reduce dependency and poverty which are some of identified factors that leads to conflicts.
As one of the factors hindering progress and of course affecting the achievement of peace in our communities, SPEAK is leading the girl empowerment by advocating and contributing to the girl-child education. Communities through the power of media, education and technology to facilitate an equitable, informed and resilient refugees societies through supporting them with tools, training opportunities (capacity building) and access to pool of knowledge and knowledge resources in a bid to battle illiteracy and mitigate poverty.
Subsequent to war, successive drought and famine in South Sudan which has led to the displacement of millions of south Sudanese, SPEAK was started with a long-term purpose of engaging sustainable interventions opportunities to support the trauma-prone and vulnerable community of South Sudanese Refugees.
Since its formation, SPEAK has been committed to building strong peace and resilience for both host community and South Sudanese Refugees by facilitating grassroots dialogues, youth activities like sports and awareness campaigns. Their activities are aimed at creating opportunities for the host and refugee communities to find a common ground on which the can share skills and innovations which encourages peaceful co-existence. They focus on interventions that are locally possible and sustainable in the context we are living.
SPEAK seeks to work with both local and international stakeholders to support grassroots solutions and innovative approaches to sustainable peace.
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Breaking the Cycle: A Train-the-Trainer Approach to Addressing Period Poverty
Period poverty – the lack of access to menstrual products, hygiene facilities, and education – affects millions of women and girls globally, with devastating impacts on their education, health, and economic opportunities. In Uganda alone, approximately 30% of girls miss school during their periods, leading to an estimated 11% eventual dropout rate due to menstruation-related issues. UNESCO estimates that one in ten girls in Sub-Saharan Africa misses school during their menstrual cycle, which can add up to as much as 20% of a school year.
Business for Better Society (BBS) demonstrated its commitment to sustainable development through an innovative skills transfer initiative with SPEAK Uganda, focusing on addressing period poverty through practical education and empowerment. The project centered on a comprehensive train-the-trainer program, where BBS sponsored a Master Trainer to work directly with the SPEAK Uganda team.
The training program had several essential components. First, team members learned the technical skills needed to produce reusable sanitary pads, a practical solution to period poverty that offers both economic and environmental benefits. Additionally, participants were trained in educational delivery methods, equipping them with the skills to teach these techniques to women and girls in their communities how to make and care for their own pads. This approach ensures that knowledge continues to spread throughout the community long after the initial training is complete.
This initiative exemplifies Business for Better Society’s philosophy that skills transfer is fundamental to project sustainability. Rather than creating dependency on external support, the organisation prioritises building local capacity and expertise. By teaching SPEAK Uganda team members not just how to make and maintain the products but also how to teach others, BBS has helped create a self-sustaining cycle of knowledge sharing and empowerment. This approach addresses immediate needs while building long-term community resilience and independence.
The focus on reusable sanitary pad production addresses a critical need in many communities where period poverty affects women’s education, economic participation, and daily lives. The economic impact is significant – research indicates that girls who miss school due to menstruation are 70% more likely to fall behind in their education, affecting their long-term earning potential and career prospects. In Uganda, where the average cost of disposable sanitary products can consume up to 30% of a family’s monthly income, reusable alternatives provide a sustainable and affordable solution. By making this knowledge accessible and transferable, including crucial hygiene practices, the project helps create practical solutions to period poverty while also potentially generating economic opportunities for those who master these skills. The ripple effects of this initiative continue to expand as trained participants share their knowledge with others in their communities.