Innovative Youth with Action Uganda (IYAU) is a non-profit organization that promotes empowerment and sustainable change for poor, marginalized and vulnerable people through facilitating access to skills development (primarily in agriculture), human rights and improved health and livelihoods
Volunteering Activities
What We Need
Programme/project development, fundraising, communications (writing, editing, social media, website) grant writing, agricultural development, entrepreneurship
When & Who
What we Provide
Our staff can host volunteers
Volunteers are expected to cater for their meals and these can be negotiated. Common meals include local foods out of cassava and sorghum, rice, maize, beans, avocado, fish (lake), eggs, chicken, goat, beef. We are also rich in a variety of vegetables and fruits. Some non-local foods are available in our supermarkets and cafes but these tend to be more costly.
Our Fees
The weeky fee will cover meals (breakfast, lunch and dinner). Volunteers are also requested to contribute a few extra dollars to the host to help with bills and meal preparation.
More Services we Offer
Pick up/ drop off from the Entebbe (Kampala) airport can be negotiated. There are buses available, or volunteers can also hire drivers. We can help and advise in this process. We can also organize pick up and/or drop off for a total of about 800,000 Ugandan shillings (400,000 one way). This amount can vary and even be smaller depending on availability of vehicles.
Otherwise, transport from Entebbe International Airport to Kampala by special hire is $28 and from Kampala to Soroti by bus is $7 (about a six hour ride).
Contact Person
Other Ways to Help
Volunteers that wish to work in remote are also most welcome. We can meet via Skype and discuss options and way forward. We would also benefit from guidance in entrepreneurship and resource mobilization as much as working remotely allows.
Computers, laptops, printers, scanners, camera, sewing machines, motorcycles, field and school van, water pump (generator), school furniture
Additional Info about Us
Organization, resource mobilization, grant writing, project development, website maintenance, field visits and project assessments.
we need volunteers who can help us scale up, mobilize resources, organize our work, and update our website, and social media platforms. We would also greatly benefit from exports in sustainable agriculture and business management. Volunteers can also learn from our grassroot methods and challenges faced on the ground in the Teso region of Uganda.
We believe sustainable development and transformation are essential to ensuring the creation of well-founded initiatives that empower poor, marginalized and vulnerable people to change their lives and communities. We work to empower them with the tools and knowledge they need that will allow them to overcome the many challenges they face to focus on creating innovative sustainable business initiatives. It is such well-founded initiatives that create jobs and, in turn, ensure a lasting more prosperous society. As the widely-repeated adage has taught us, IYAU will help provide the hook, or access to it, that then empowers and allows the people to fish for themselves.
Our focus is on the Teso region of Uganda, where we aim to improve the livelihoods of poor, marginalized and vulnerable people, who are most often those living with disabilities and HIV/Aids, children, youth and women. We promote empowerment of these groups by facilitating their access to services and skills development. This includes but is not limited to various initiatives and trainings in reproductive health, living with aids, entrepreneurship, microfinance, sustainable agriculture, and the like. In this way we create alternative sources of income generation and know-how in order to contribute to greater welfare and social transformation in Uganda.
*Please note that we do not work with institutionalized children.