Our work in Uganda
Sense International is working in Uganda to identify children with deafblindness and ensure that they receive a quality education and the skills to start a business.
With no national screening programme to detect sensory impairments in infants, children with deafblindness in Uganda often remain undiscovered until much later in life. Their ability to thrive is significantly affected as a result. It is also estimated that only 9% of school-age children with disabilities attend primary school.** This lack of educational opportunity further impacts on their life chances.
Sense International is working in Uganda to identify children with deafblindness and ensure that they receive a quality education and the skills to start a business. We are training community-based health professionals to assess children and carry out sight and hearing tests. We are also working with parents and care-givers so that they are able to provide sensory therapies at home to help their child’s development.
In Uganda, an estimated 885,000 people live with a mild form of deafblindness and over 88,000 live with a severe form of deafblindness.*
We support children with deafblindness and complex disabilities to enrol in school and receive a quality education. We are preparing young children to start primary school and working with schools to ensure that they provide an inclusive learning environment. We are also training teachers and parents so that they are able to provide good quality learning support.
Our livelihoods work supports young people with deafblindness to acquire skills that will enable them to start a business. We are helping Vocational Education and Training Centres to become more inclusive, ensuring that courses are tailored to the needs of students with deafblindness. We are also supporting young people with deafblindness to establish their own small businesses using the skills that they have learned.
We work closely with government ministries, helping to improve understanding of deafblindness. We are proud of our recent success in influencing the Government of Uganda to initiate its first ever vaccination campaign against rubella – a key cause of deafblindness. This reached over 18 million children last year.
Livelihoods, Uganda
161 young people
with deafblindness and other disabilities have been supported to develop skills for livelihoods over the past year.
Rubella vaccination
18 million children
have received a rubella vaccination following our work with the Government of Uganda to initiate the country’s first ever rubella vaccination campaign.
