Along with my colleague Morten, I am pleased to share an update from our first week here in Gulu, Uganda with our partners from the emerging organization, Youth Leaders for Restoration and Development (YOLRED). We are inspired by the wisdom, creativity and passion that the former child soldiers of Uganda bring to the leadership of creating and managing their own organization. For the first time, former child soldiers themselves will determine their own strategies for reintegration and prevention.
To help finalize the organizational design, we have facilitated several workshops, helping the YOLRED team clarify and document the mission, vision and principles of this new organization.
We have also together made great progress in defining the organizational structure and plan to ensure that these young leaders will have the platform and support they need to acheive their ambitious mission.
These discussions with the YOLRED leaders have been informed by a wide range of key stakeholders including leading NGO’s, government offices, religious leaders and family members.
We can see the work over the past week has been crucial on two parallel levels. First, through our conversations with community partners, we are raising awareness and enthusiasm among the stakeholders in the area. At the same time, this highly creative processes with the YOLRED team is designing solutuions to the missing pieces of their strategy and bringing a deep and inspiring cohesion and shared vision with the team.
We look forward to keeping you updated as we move towards the public launch of YOLRED in the coming weeks. To get invovled, please show your support at our generosity.com page.
If you have questions or suggestions, we're happy to hear for you.
Sincerely,
Anders and Morten, Team Anorak