Young women encounter challenges everyday. Apart from sharing their communities’ struggles over limited resources like water, land or jobs, many systematically face discrimination simply by virtue of being female. This includes physical and sexual violence, being kept out of school, disproportionate vulnerability to HIV infection and lack of access to property and other rights. Yet young women around the globe possess the collective power to change their lives, their communities and the world we live in. Just as they face daily challenges, young women are continually developing innovative, effective ways to improve their lives. By bringing together their wisdom and creativity, young women are leading change.

Understanding that investing in young women’s leadership is essential to social change now and for the future, Milele Foundation Uganda with the generous support of it’s Sponsors have developed this training resource for and by young women.

Empowering Young Women to Lead Change is designed to support the development of young women’s skills and to enable them to provide leadership on the issues that concern them. It offers engaging and dynamic activities to motivate and enable young women to believe in their abilities to catalyse change and to mobilise others to do the same. It is a flexible tool for learning and exploring issues from human rights and violence against women to body image, self-esteem and developing leadership skills.Young women in Uganda(Kabowa), have field-tested this manual.

Milele Foundation Uganda affirms the importance young women’s leadership and their meaningful participation in decision-making. This is done in part through a mandatory minimum representation requirement of at least 30 percent young women in all decision-making bodies. Presently, half of the members of the board are young women. In addition, Milele Foundation Uganda offers young women training and support to become effective leaders. These include internships and exchange programmes; leadership training for young women at events; as well as an electronic forum designed to provide support and information network for young women leaders at all levels.

Milele foundation Uganda ensures improvement of women status, safeguarding young people’s rights, promoting gender equality and equity are highly important. Providing opportunities for learning and for protecting the health of young people, including their sexual and reproductive health, are crucial for adolescents and youth to reach their full potential.

Milele Foundation Uganda works with a range of partners and with young people to encourage the development of young women and men through participatory, culturally sensitive and rights-based programmes.

This article is to call out all those who are willing to join with us to put young women in control of educating and empowering themselves to take action on key issues that affect their lives.
It only takes a small group of thoughtful people to change the world. “Indeed it is the only thing that ever has”.