Women in Leadership is a female-led, grassroots charity operating across the Busoga region of Eastern Uganda.

Our work focuses on women's and adolescent girl’s rights to health, education and livelihoods in rural Uganda. Health centres in rural communities in Uganda are often poorly funded with a lack of supplies. This coupled with very low levels of sexual reproductive health education leads to contraception stigma, low prevalence rates, little control over numbers of births or pregnancies, increased early school leavers and ultimately, continued poverty. In Uganda more than a third of girls marry before the age of 18 and 1 in 4 girls between the ages 15-19 years are either pregnant or have already had their first child. In Bugweri District which encompasses many rural communities, 43% of women over the age of 18 are illiterate compared to just 16% in more urban areas Poverty in Uganda has a predominantly female face with women-headed households being particularly vulnerable to poverty. ). In Uganda's Busoga region, 56% of women between the ages of 15-49 have experienced domestic abuse in their lifetime (UBOS). One study showed that 70% of men and 90% of women in rural Uganda believed that wife-beating was justified in certain circumstances (Koenig). Our work in Uganda seeks to break the cycle of inequality, poverty and violence against women and girls in rural communities in Uganda.

Our 3-year strategy seeks to build on our work catalysing locally-led development and change for women and girls in Uganda.