On 28th April, 2016, the Principal of Makerere University College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHUSS), Prof. Edward K. Kirumira, together with Blain Teketel, Wilbert and Mikaka from OAK Foundation and Maureen Greenwood-Basken and Anna from Wellspring Advisors, held a meeting with the Executive Director of AfriChild, to provide updates on the implementation progress and feedback on proposals submitted to both donors. The two donors in 2013 provided a three-year start-up grant for core staff and activities of setting up the multi-Institutional Centre for the Study of the African Child (AfriChild) that is hosted by CHUSS in collaboration with the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development, the ChildFund International, TPO(Uganda), Columbia University, and UNICEF(Uganda).
During the meeting both OAK Foundation and Wellspring Advisors made a commitment of a total of US$1,390,000 to fund AfriChild Centre activities over the next three years to achieve the following outcomes: 1) Strengthen research capacity to inform policy and practice, 2) Strength Inter-university collaboration and training and 3) to develop the Center into a fully-fledged entity. CHUSS will be the principle beneficially.
To-date several of the academic members of staff from CHUSS, especially from the School of Social Sciences and the School of Psychology have benefitted from support by the AfriChild-led training, networking and research activities. The College is also the In-country Principal Investigator for a large nation-wide Violence Against Children survey funded by the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) Atlanta and headed by the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development of the Government of Uganda. Many of the recent graduates from the College have been Data collectors, Team Leaders and Supervisors in this Survey.