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About this Fundraiser

Initiative Name: Lukome Center Auto Mechanics vocational training

Short Initiative Description

ChildVoice International is a Christian organization that seeks to restore the voices of children silenced by war. ChildVoice International’s programs recognize that someone must speak for the thousands of children rendered voiceless by unspeakable brutality and unimaginable inhumanity.

ChildVoice operates a therapeutic community for war-affected girls and their children in northern Uganda called the Lukome Center. The Lukome Center includes non-traditional educational programs and a vocational training center with spiritual and emotional counseling for former child soldiers and other girls who have been marginalized by Uganda’s protracted conflict. Girls’ lives have been changed as they work through their trauma, learn job skills and begin to provide for their children. In fact, 93% of the girls ChildVoice has served in the last five years are back in their communities, raising their families and working in meaningful jobs, not dependent on aid or outside help. Now, at the Lukome Center, you can hear laughter and voices filled with excitement, where once there was only despair and silence.

For the upcoming classes, a new vocational training option is in the planning. The tailoring course which has been offered since the early classes is not sustainable because the graduates are not able to develop a profitable business. Uganda has been flooded with inexpensive foreign-made clothes so only one graduate has a successful business making bicycle seats.

There is a shortage of auto mechanics and drivers in northern Uganda and South Sudan, and women are in high demand for these positions. ChildVoice is responding to this need by creating a program to train our students in these vocations. The students have expressed interest in this line of work. This grant would establish the program and provide the tools needed for the first year of students. The tools would remain with the students for their businesses.

ChildVoice is planning to establish Child Mother clubs in the refugee camps for the South Sudanese women. Plans are underway to establish a program in another country to assist war-affected children.

Initiative or Organizational Relationship

I have been a volunteer with ChildVoice since shortly after its founding. Being friends with both Conrad Mandsager, the founder, and his wife Kathy, I knew their integrity and faith so I was confident in the quality of the organization. As I learned about the conflict in Northern Uganda and the impact on the lives of the children, I was more committed to helping in any way. The stories of the girls abducted, sexually exploited, physically and psychologically abused, forced to survive yet rejected by their communities when they did escape moved my heart to assist these young women and their children.

I returned to the Lukome Centre in August 2017 and had the privilege to see the development of the program since my last visit in 2007. Meeting the current students was wonderful – to see the joy and hope that is developing in their lives. We were privileged to meet some graduates during the week. Their ingenuity in their businesses was exciting to see – they were confident, industrious, mature and entrepreneurial. Their businesses were varied but their determination was consistent between them. It is truly a family – once a ChildVoice girl always a ChildVoice girl!

I was impressed with the Ugandan staff (as well as the US staff) as they continually seek to improve the program and the students’ lives. The staff is caring, compassionate, intelligent, passionate, and committed. This change is a demonstration of that foresight and continual striving for excellence.

Initiative Sustainability Evaluation

ChildVoice seeks to restore the dignity and to improve the destiny of war-affected children in northern Uganda and beyond. The primary objective of the Lukome Center is to provide a safe space for girls to experience physical, emotional, and spiritual healing from the trauma of war and to develop skills to provide for themselves and their families. Long-term, the goal is that these girls will become healthy, thriving members of their communities.

Thus far, 93% of the girls ChildVoice has served are back in their communities, raising their families and working in meaningful jobs, not dependent on aid or outside help. We have seen these lives transformed as the girls work through their trauma, learn job skills, and begin to provide for their children. After this time (no longer than 18 months), the girls graduate and start new lives outside of the Lukome Center. ChildVoice maintains support and communication with the graduates for a minimum of 3 years to assist them in their transition to their new lives.

ChildVoice is celebrating 11 years of work in Northern Uganda assisting war-affected girls and their children. ChildVoice’s comprehensive model includes basic education, life skill and vocational training, spiritual and psychosocial counseling, and microenterprise and microfinance training.

This expansion would enhance the vocational offerings provided to the students. Currently ChildVoice offers catering, baking, hair salon (styling and management), sweatering and tailoring. Auto mechanics and Driver’s Education would replace tailoring in the curriculum. Each student takes a beginning semester of all of the courses before deciding on 2 vocational tracks for focus. All students also take a Business curriculum.. Each student also has a garden plot of her own — the Lukome Center purchases the produce grown by the students for the Center meals; the funds are placed into an account for each student so she has money set aside to pursue her new life.


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  • $37,200 One-time Goal
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  • 20 Lives Impacted
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Field Partner

ChildVoice International 0
Newmarket, NH, US
Vision Statement Restoring the voices of children silenced by war Mission Stateme...
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Uganda

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Funded - December 11, 2017
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ChildVoice Lukome Center Auto Mechanics Training

by Legacy Collective 20 Lives Impacted Uganda

Initiative Name: Lukome Center Auto Mechanics vocational training Short Initiative Description ChildVoice International is a Christian organizati...

$39,158 One-time Donations
  • $37,200 One-time Goal
  • $0 Still Needed
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