Cyorf Foundation for Community Development is an indigenous not-for profit organization with the prime focus of providing formal education, health care, HIV/AIDS education, vocational training, and preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ to desperately poor, neglected and forgotten AIDS orphans and widows.

We are situated in Jinja district, which lies 80kms East of Kampala city, Uganda's capital.

Uganda as a developing country is among other problems, afflicted by Civil wars, hunger, economic stagnation, extreme poverty, low literacy levels, and the AIDS pandemic that continues its deadly foray into every village. This calls for innovative actions that are designed and implemented to bring about change.
Cyorf is actively pursing this at the grass roots.

As development partners, non-governmental organizations are proving to be more effective at grassroots where government hands cannot reach. Cyorf is one of the few grassroots organization based in the Eastern Uganda offering HIV/AIDS services to the rural communities as well as helping to facilitate their social, spiritual, Educational and economical well being.

We are a fully registered Not for Profit Organization and derive our support from the valuable services of volunteers, Christian and non-Christian resources and our dear partners in-country and abroad who offer financial, moral, educational and material support to facilitate our activities.

MISSION STATEMENT
CYORF is a pro-life organization with a mission to empower and/or building the capacity of orphaned children and widows to enable them be self reliant to intervene and respond to their needs (physical, spiritual, educational and emotional) individually, in their families and in the communities they live in.

OUR VISION
To transform the lives of orphaned children and widows holistically and with love to enable them come out of physical and spiritual; suffering, illiteracy, poverty, disease, and other causes to human suffering.

OUR AIM
CYORF was established with an aim to uphold the sanctity of human life by meeting the physical, educational and emotional needs of orphaned children, widows and generally people facing welfare problems.
In pursuit to fulfill and accomplish our Mission, Vision and purpose of existence, CYORF has two major Programs through which it reaches out to people facing physical suffering

Our major Programs
· HIV/AIDS Intervention and Vulnerable Groups welfare Programs.
· Community Development and Empowerment Programs.

In the past CYORF has initiated a number of interventions to address the problems faced by the community through various activities which include; provision of formal and vocational education to orphaned children and widows, participated in training the community on HIV/AIDS awareness, initiating a cow project for widows of buwenda village, renovation and construction of a pit latrine for Mpumudde rehabilitation center among other activities. Our interventions create positive impact on the grass root populace because the methodologies we adapt are bottom – top approach.

The organization is fully recognized and registered by the government of the republic of Uganda as a non-governmental organization.
Our registration charity number is: S-5914/4043

ORGANIZATION STRUCTURE
As a membership community based organization, CYORF has a General Assembly composed of all members from the four sub-counties, which make up the program area as the supreme organ of the organization.

Under the General Assembly, there is a Board of Directors (B.O.D) elected by the General Assembly. The B.O.D is responsible for all affairs regarding management, policies and administration of the organization, and ensures strict accountability, transparency and impartial planning and policy implementation. It consists of the Chairperson, Vice Chairperson, Treasurer and four (4) members.

SECRETARIAT
The secretariat is the administrative arm of the organization and is in charge of development and implementing programs. It coordinates the activities of the organization, disseminates information to members to keep them updated on any development in the organization.

Activities

What we do
1. Orphan Education
2. Women's Empowerment program
3. General Community Training (Skills)
4. Rural HIV/AIDS Awareness Programs
5. Evangelism

Provision of Orphans Education
95% of the world's AIDS orphans live in sub-Saharan Africa. The AIDS pandemic has created an orphan crisis in sub-Saharan Africa. Turning the tide of this emergency requires immediate and sustained action at all levels. This unprecedented orphan crisis will require radically scaled-up national, regional, and community responses for at least two decades -- especially in sub-Saharan Africa, where children have been hardest hit.

Orphans due to other causes also demand attention. Increases in the number of orphans due to AIDS should be considered as part of a much larger problem of orphaning due to all causes. In 12 African countries, projections show that orphans will comprise at least 15% of all children under 15 years of age by 2010.

Other children are also vulnerable. The safety, health, and survival of all children in affected countries are increasingly jeopardized due to the effects of AIDS on families and communities. Increasing numbers of children are living with sick or dying parents or in households that have taken in orphans. Moreover, the pandemic is deepening poverty in entire communities, with children usually the first to suffer from the deprivation.

Communities with a high proportion of orphans require urgent assistance. Responses need to be focused and scaled up in communities with high proportions of orphans and other children affected by HIV/AIDS. Because they are at the center of the crisis, these communities are the most overstretched. Collaboration is key. No one can tackle this crisis alone -- we need your help.

As parents and other family members become ill, children take on greater responsibility for income generation, food production, and care of family members. They face decreased access to adequate nutrition, basic health care, housing, and clothing. Very few of these families can afford to send their children to school, with young girls at particular risk of being denied an education. In both urban and rural areas, many orphans are struggling to survive on their own in child-headed households. Many others are forced to live on the street.

Why Orphans and widows education? This cycle of abject poverty is like perpetual quicksand. With parents dead and/or dying, children must do all they can to survive, including work in the fields or beg in the streets. But without the benefits of an education, they are destined for poverty. The cycle continues when they have children and cannot afford to send them to school (education is not free for most Ugandans). The villages and counties of these children suffer also -- the massive drain of public resources and the lack of tax revenue deepen the problem.

By offering free education, vocational training, entrepreneurial guidance and support, we can give these children something more important than a hand-out: we can give them HOPE.

Objective 1: Increase access to free education for orphans in Uganda

Increase the free access to education for children affected by AIDS and civil war
Provide vocational training to older students and parents caring for orphans
Provide a facility for AIDS education, vocational training, grief counseling and continuing education for the entire community
Objective 2: Stabilize the environment of children orphaned by AIDS and civil war so they can access educational and vocational opportunities

Create family-style homes as an anchor in an increasingly changing society
Provide a safe environment for proper socialization and training
Integrate homeless/parentless children into the normal culture of Uganda
Objective 3: Empower individuals through vocational training and enterprise

Provide opportunities for training in computers, tourism, animal husbandry, agriculture, tailoring, food service, carpentry, weaving, bee keeping, baking, construction, and manufacturing
Provide income-producing opportunities through the vocational training center and retail outlets
Empower women and girls towards independence and self-sustaining homes
Sensitization and Promotion of Community HIV/AIDS Awareness
HIV/AIDS is the main cause of death among adults, Youth, and the second most important cause of death among women in Uganda today. CYORF is involved in HIV/AIDS sensitization program based on moral conduct and behavior change.
To some people AIDS is still a taboo while to others it's charm or witchcraft. Many people are still ignorant of HIV/AIDS.

We teach the general public facts about HIV/AIDS, nutrition and sexually transmitted diseases; what it is not, how it spreads, how you can protect yourself getting infected, psychological care and emotional support for the sick. CYORF conducts this in villages under trees, house to house, in families, community centers, higher institutions of learning, in schools primary and secondary teaching children and adults.

We also use a crusade approach which enables easy mobilization of grass root population at one time with the help of our community based representatives and community leaders of that particular village. (MASS BOTTOM UP PARTICIPATORY APPROACH).

In the Villages there are so many Cultural beliefs and practices that are in them selves supposed to be positive issues, but are becoming a threat in the spread of HIV/AIDS.
One of them is the Wife inheriting. The brother inherits the wife of the deceased; and in most cases, the deceased has died of AIDS. The other one is Circumcision- this is where several Children are circumcised at the same time with the same knife without sterilizing many families use the same needle for treatment (injection) without sterilizing; also this is due to poverty not being able to buy for each person in the house. CYORF members go deep in the villages among the rural poor where information on HIV/AIDS is scanty and most people have no access to better health care facilities and education.

Results from this village mission calls for a mobile clinic concept; This mobile clinic would go to the village centers treating affected people on particular days of the month. The clinic would administer drugs and offer counseling to clients. Some of the children have the disease themselves passed down from mother to child at birth, breast-feeding. When they finally become weak and are about to die, a child in such a home becomes the head of the Household (like father or mother). This child begins to care for the dying parent in addition to going to school and caring for his /her young sisters and brothers. This causes additional problems to the organization to meet the needs of such children given the limited resources available.

HIV/AIDS Dilemma: Field Reports at Glance
Given the rampant poverty in villages, there is usually no money at all so the dying patient cannot even afford the simplest medical treatment to help with their common ailments! These conditions normally confront the patients even though without any possible help, thus shortening their lives. Worst, some people are ignorant and associate the sickness with witchcraft or superstition, given the high level of illiteracy in rural areas.

Christian Evangelism
This deals with the crucial spiritual and moral questions of existence.
Evangelism is central to our work. This is where we come in with outreach Team offering spiritual help and comfort .It has began to yield positively when people understand that they have a life beyond this world and many have given their lives to the Lord.

In executing this mission we are embracing the Holy scriptural messages in psalms 68:5-6 A father to the fatherless, and a judge for the widows is God in his holy Habitation. God setteth the Solitary/lonely orphans and widows) in the families, he brings out those, which are bound with chains.


Contact us at:

CYORF Foundation for Community Development
Plot No. 12, Kimaka, Jinja
P.O. BOX 1796, Jinja, Uganda
Telephone:+256-43-123360
E-mail: cyorf@yahoo.com