Uganda

Youth Sport Uganda (YSU)

Youth Sport Uganda (YSU) is a sport for development organisation that was established in 2006 with a mission to offer educational, health and life skills opportunities to vulnerable children and youth in Uganda.

YSU has reached more than 30,000 youth in schools and communities around Kampala through harnessing the power of sports.

YSU has various programs that use sports to influence youths’ behaviour, and these include:

The Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) program, where WASH clubs are formed in the slums to address issues like shortages of clean water, poor hygiene, poor garbage disposal, and a lack of toilets/pit latrines.

The Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM) program for girls and young women, where sanitary products are provided and knowledge on managing menstruation and personal hygiene is offered.

Programmes also equip young people with skills like tailoring for sustainable living and reduce inequalities through the Skills Development Program.

ORGANISATION DETAILS

PARTICIPANTS

Vulnerable children and youth aged 6-23 who are living in informal settlements in Uganda.

LOCATIONS

Nationwide: Main areas of operations are Kampala, Mbale, Masindi and Butebo among other districts.

Regular football activities are in the slums of Acholi quarter, Kitintale, Gogonya, Kirombe, and Luzira among other slums.

Country statistics

166 out of 189 in Human Development Index rankings (UNDP, 2019)

Average annual salary per person $760 (World Bank, 2021)

19.7% of people live below the poverty line (WFP)

Uganda is a landlocked country in East-Central Africa with a population of 46.2 million (CIA World Factbook, 2022)

Over the past three decades, Uganda’s national poverty rate has fallen by more than half, from 56% in 1992/1993 to 21.4% in 2019/2020, owing mostly to improved agricultural incomes among poor households and improved regional markets after the end of conflict in Northern Uganda (Uganda Bureau of Statistics, 2020; World Bank Group, 2016).

Yet Uganda remains one of the poorest countries in the world. In 2019/2020, 12.3 million people (30.1% of the population) lived below the poverty line of U.S. $1.77 per person per day (Uganda Bureau of Statistics, 2021).

The number of Ugandans who are not poor but vulnerable increased as well, as did the number of those who shift in and out of poverty. The proportions of people who are not poor but vulnerable to poverty increased by 10 percentage points, from 33% in 1992/1993 to 43% in 2016/2017 (World Bank Group, 2016).

Between 2015 and 2019, 8.4% of households moved out of poverty, while 10.2% slipped into poverty (Uganda Bureau of Statistics, 2020). And the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the problem, causing 300,000 more Ugandans to slide back into poverty (Uganda Bureau of Statistics, 2020, 2021; Independent News, 2021).

Uganda hosts more refugees than any other country in Africa, including people who have fled from South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi. The Government gives refugees plots of land to cultivate, to encourage their self-sufficiency. However, as the number of refugees – especially from South Sudan – grows, these plots become gradually smaller.

While the poverty rate declined from 31 percent in 2005/2006 to 19.7 percent in 2012/2013, impetuous population growth has meant that the absolute number of poor people has not decreased (World Food Programme).