CARE Foundation Uganda ( CAFU)

CARE Foundation Uganda (CAFU) is a legally registered (Reg. no.11192), non-profit, non-governmental organisation founded in 2015 thru local initiatives. CAFU mainly focuses on children, youth and women devoid of borders. Since inception, the Foundation is devoted and engaged on supporting and transforming the lives of vulnerable children, youth and women then communities towards sustainable and resilient inclusive socio-economic development through a range of integrated locally driven solutions to escape the cycle of injustice, poverty and social exclusion. We endeavour to support innovative approaches, learn from our work and share the knowledge gained.
CAFU's Vision is: A society where the community has every child, youth and woman, built-in for equal opportunity to advance socio-economic transformation, participation and reach their full potential.
Our Mission is: To partner with the community, private sector, charities, NGOs and governments to champion the socio-economic independence of children, youth & women to cultivate sustainable inclusiveness and transforming their lives.
Program Goal
To cultivate efficient and sustainable rural development that creates resilient communities and increase opportunities for children, youth and women to thrive in.
Program Strategies
• Sustainable rural development. We foster integrated planning and development to creative skills for entrepreneurship and construct prospects for youth (especially girls) and women, which are economically efficient, environmentally sound, and socially equitable.

• Economically vibrant neighbourhoods. We promote and support sustainable community development through economically vibrant localities that create opportunities for youth and women and offer integrated approaches of support thru creative and innovative entrepreneurship, microfinance, social inclusion, education, research and sustainability.
CAFU’s programme objective is to connect tens of thousands of children, youth and women including communities globally of Christian faith, ethos and beliefs towards sustainable development. Our work is all-inclusive and it revolves in five thematic areas of: Social Protection –Child Protection and Women Rights Protection; Education –strengthening access and completion of quality formal education and non –formal education; Health & Nutrition –Adolescent Sexual Reproductive Health; Livelihoods & Microfinance; including Research. Gender/ HVI/AIDS responsiveness is a cross cutting theme in each key sector.

Another critical thematic area that CAFU aims working on is Village Banking;- strategy to financial inclusion; primary financial literacy and financial education; microcredit and micro savings; consumer protection; financial identity; credit information system; financial inclusion data, consumer empowerment and market conduct, e-money, and financial integrity. These address both demand and supply side barriers to financial inclusion, with critical gaps identified under each strategic pillar includes: reducing financial exclusion and barriers to access financial services; developing the credit infrastructure for growth; building the digital infrastructure for efficiency; deepening and broadening formal savings, investment and insurance usage; and protecting and empowering individuals with enhanced financial capability.
The ultimate objective of enhancing financial inclusion is to improve the welfare of children, youth and women and to contribute to socio-economic development. “A financially included population is key to reducing income inequality and poverty as well as boosting productivity and growth,” adding that such a population would accelerate the realisation of poverty alleviation aspirations.

INSPIRATION
Belief:
(i) Guided by the credence that every life has equal value;
(ii) Offer people the information and tools they need to thrive in today's livelihood, and they will give back that knowledge to their communities tenfold;
(iii) Grassroots organizations are key positioned to envision, articulate and implement their own plans for the development of their rural communities and households;
(iv) Community development cannot take place when human rights are denied;
(v) Women are critical drivers of community development and change; community’s life cannot truly flourish when women are not fully empowered to resist gender-based violence and coercion;
(vi) Marginalized communities that are vulnerable to poverty and human rights violations are powerful agents of change and development when mobilized from within.

Our Values
CAFU have confidence in collaboration, to drive our breakthroughs that the community knows, the children & youth are best brought up in family setting where every woman is empowered. To support community development in this, we are guided by our core values of: Community Centered, Integrity, Equity and Dignity and Partnerships. Our culture is embedded in these values, along with a strong commitment to our Children, youth and Women Safeguarding Code of conduct, ensuring that all representatives of CAFU demonstrate the highest standards of behaviour towards children, youth and women both in their private and professional lives.

a) Community Centred
CAFU believes that the interests of the people should be at the centre of everything it does. In this regard, people will be consulted through Participatory Rapid Assessments, Baselines; consultative meetings, Research and Documentation including other forms to enable them express their views of what they feel is a priority and most suitable and appropriate for them.

b) Integrity
CAFU believes that being transparent and accountable; financially, socially and ethically to our beneficiaries, supporters, partners and funders is an integral part of our work. In order to uphold this value, CAFU Board and staff will ensure that in programme design and development and implementation, we conduct ourselves in manner that promotes the representation of the organisation among our development partners, programme beneficiaries and the funding partners. To achieve this we shall do our work with respect to all our partners, be time conscious in terms of reporting and delivery of services, conduct our business in a transparent and authentic manner. Staff shall perform their tasks with an open mind and flexibility to enable us prevent and respond to local realities within the changing context.

c) Equity and Dignity:
We believe in equity and promote dignity of human beings. We rely on this as the best ideological foundation of any serious development work. Drawing from our individual innumerable years’ of experience in development work, we have concluded that the best we can do for all humanity to achieve equity and dignity is to support and work with the underprivileged communities. We similarly apply this ideological foundation to our staffing policy as well.

d) Partnership:
We believe in networking and collaboration, to thrive on our diversity and work with partners to leverage our global strength in making a difference for children, youth, women and communities;
Global Learning Partnerships (GLP)- Global development
 Innovative interdisciplinary global connectedness, and collaborations
 Builds and maintains strong global citizenship and tangible transformation
 Two sided innovative and impactful opportunities
 Accelerated learning, skills, and knowledge,
 Improved Career Building (ICB) and increased core competencies and expertise (to become a global leader)

e) We –Support personal growth.

CAFU’s values are virtually to pass on the knowledge and document lessons learnt for evidence based invaluable, approach to grow into a practical, innovative Charity. Our development values drive our work with children, youth, women and communities, by ensuring that we strategically do everything with Diligence, Compassion and Care. More so it reflects the holistic nature of our work to integrate socio-economic development practices, and while preserving the environment.
Strategy
CAFU envisages on local ownership and strategic partnerships to ensure rural underprivileged communities collaborate around a shared cause, providing rare opportunities to work and build up capacities together through innovative Community Based Approaches (CBA) and on Rights-Based Approach (RBA) to build Safe, Secure and Stronger Sustainable (4S) communities. In turn, the ‘Pass it On’ principle not only builds stronger communities, but then it allows robust support towards more societies to develop knowledge and skills, to build up self-reliance.
We facilitate and grow "the next generation of resilient children, youth and women who handle and solve complex and cross-sectoral social and economic challenges, to thrive in the global economy, and catalyze positive change."

Sustainability
CAFU’s primary objective is to work with the community, private sector, charities, NGOs and governments, including Foundations, to embed the principles of the innovative programming into: Social Protection, Health, Education, Livelihoods and Microfinance and Research systems in order to champion the socio-economic independence of children, youth & women together and communities to cultivate sustainable inclusiveness and transformation. We believe that change happens through collaboration and attempts to broker connections by facilitating on ground linkages among partners. Further the Foundation also prioritizes learning and sports to support community development besides engaging funders to learn, share, and work together on areas of common interest.

Workforce
The Foundation is led by a distinctive team of Technical Specialists with integrity who are proactive and knowledgeable. We have a robust leadership and projects; thus creating a unique blend of competences to address today’s interrelated development challenges.