As part of Global Affairs Canada’s (GAC) initiative to support small and medium organizations for global impact and innovation, Raising The Village (RTV) will partner with the Government of Canada over 4 years to support 100,000 last-mile community members experiencing ultra-poverty.  

Raising The Village (RTV), a Canadian charity committed to ending ultra-poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa, has launched its livelihoods project to support 100,000+ people from 2022 to 2024, in last-mile remote farming communities in the Kagadi and Kyenjojo Districts in midwest Uganda. The four-year project is funded by the Government of Canada through GAC to implement high-impact, innovative and sustainable development projects to reduce poverty and vulnerability and build a more equitable world.

This project, titled From Last Mile Into Possibilities (FLIP), is part of RTV’s program model that partners with hard-to-reach rural communities. Each village is supported over a period of 24 months through holistic programming that provides access to water, health, and food security, so that communities, particularly women who experience a greater disadvantage, are able to participate in the program’s income-generating activities and financial inclusion initiatives, and receive training and support to sustain progress. Recognizing that sustainable equity is key to attaining sustainable economic growth, the program ensures women and youth-headed households are prioritized, and that entire communities participate in gender equity training and elect equitable community leaders with at least 40% women and 20% youth representation.

Ultra-poverty is one of the most challenging and complex issues of inequality that we face today. In Uganda, 55% of the rural population lives in multidimensional poverty. Many of these families are subsistence farmers living in last-mile communities, surviving on as little as $0.50 a day with limited access to food, clean water, basic healthcare, and social safety net services. RTV’s programs focus on paving a pathway out of ultra-poverty for such families towards economic self-sufficiency by increasing household incomes and earnings to above USD $2/day within 24 months.

Quotes:

"Last-mile communities in Sub-Saharan Africa experience deep disadvantages and are often neglected in funding priorities. This contribution by the Government of Canada will help RTV reach more people in these remote rural communities and partner with them to break the cycle of ultra-poverty.” - Shawn Cheung, CEO, RTV.

“Canada is proud to partner with Raising the Village on the ‘From Last Mile Into Possibilities’ (FLIP) project in Uganda. Using innovative, high impact and community-based approaches, this project will help support the hardest-to-reach, ultra-poor populations, prioritizing women and youth-headed households.” - Janine Cocker, Head of Cooperation for Kenya, Somalia, Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda, The High Commission of Canada to Kenya.

Quick Facts:

?     80% of the world’s ultra-poor live in just 14 countries, 11 of them in Sub-Saharan Africa including Uganda.

?     Nearly 400 million people earn less than $1.25 per day, living without access to food, water, safe shelter, education, and healthcare.

?     Women make up more than half of the agricultural workforce in Uganda, yet their agricultural productivity remains lower than men, due to social and economic barriers and undue burden of unpaid care work.

?     RTV’s FLIP project was selected and announced in 2019 as part of GAC’s commitment to engage Canadian SMOs in international assistance efforts in areas consistent with Canada’s Feminist International Assistance Policy.

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