Download Presentation

Ahimsa Round Table 2015
“GLOBAL HEATH AND FAITH INSPIRED
COMMUNITIES”
CAPE TOWN, 21-24 JUNE 2015
PRESENTER: REV CANON PROFESSOR
GIDEON B BYAMUGISHA
Topic
Education for an AIDS free future: The Ministry of
Friends of Canon Gideon Foundation, Uganda
Who are we at FOCAGIFO?
 We are a small faith- based, faith- inspired and
friends propelled Non-Governmental Ministry in
Uganda.
 We develop innovative ideas on “Faith & HIV” and
implement them with one objective in mind:

To effectively contribute to global, regional and national goals
of quickly reaching and evidentially sustaining…
Zero new HIV infection and transmissions
 Zero stigma and discrimination
 Zero AIDS related deaths

What are we focused on?
 We are currently focused on social investing and
entrepreneurship as a means of sustaining our




(a) holistic education
(b) integrated training
(c) youth empowerment
(d) interdisciplinary research programs
 Hope Tea
A product we are marketing in collaboration with Kayonza Tea
Farmers in Uganda & Thistle Farms in Nashville, USA.
 Proceeds are used to support the holistic education and
integrated training of vulnerable youths to become AIDS
competent and holistically empowered

What are our ambitions?
 Our ambition is to



(a) Strengthen Our Hope Institute for Transformational
Leadership & Development
(b) Build the Hope University Semuto (HUS)
(c) Establish our Hope Social Enterprise (HOSE) unit
 We aim at educating, training and graduating 3,600
youths annually as






(i) Community and family health competent
(ii) Spiritually empowered
(iii) Gainfully and technologically skilled
(iv ) Productively employed
(v) Social justice sensitive
(vi) Environmental health aware leaders.
Imagine the impact over the next 10,
20 and 30 year period!!!
 We
have so-far graduated 1,300 through the
FOCAGIFO Hope Institute for Transformational
Leadership & Development

Through founding INERELA+, 13,000 religious leaders
living with and or personally affected by HIV and AIDS in
25 countries are active champions of hope
We are Persistent in FAITH and Resilient in HOPE
 The Friends of Canon Gideon Foundation (FOCAGIFO) is the
result of hardnosed faith and sacrificially engaged work by
friends , supporters and well wishers
 Our goal is to end the vicious cycle of “deprivation,
vulnerability, infection risk and early death”
 We remain unwavering in siding with the most vulnerable
youths and young adults that are







stigmatized
culturally shamed
sexually abused
economically deprived
socially mis-understood
educationally discriminated against
Pejoratively referred to as ‘drop outs’
Our Contribution to the Global Health Landscape


We have succeeded in growing a global movement of wounded healers through INERELA+ .
Through the Global Working Group on Faith, SSDDIM & HIV; we are engaging leaders of
religion and ‘congregations of faith’ to ‘see’ the pitfalls of our health intervention models,
messages, theologies and sermons that focus on changing individual risk behavior
without taking into account the risky environments.

Through our global health advocacy and experience sharing sessions like this one ; we have
consistently called upon policy makers and programmers in state, inter-state and non-state
sectors to





(a) take religion and religious beliefs seriously
(b) stimulate respectful dialogue with religious leaders
(c) fund their engagement in a non-patronizing manner
(d) invest in holistic education, integrated training and interdisciplinary research ministries (like ours in
FOCAGIFO) to promote holistic health literacy, leaders, communities and congregations of faith.
The Key Lesson Learnt in the last 23 years is : We ignore the role of religious belief,
religious leadership and religious practice in global health at our own peril!
Our Key Challenge
 Our key challenge is in making
 The complete transition to becoming A Social
Business entity that Engineers A Sustainable
Future Without AIDS- through Education.
 Our Social Business to be a Mission that is
vocational, intentional, relational and excellent
in Skilling youths and Transforming their
health futures and out comes.
What We Need
 Yes, we are prophetic leaders and social visionaries in FOCAGIFO.
 But we are also realists that are conscious of our resource limitations.
 The implementation of our vision will need the involvement of more social
investors in




(i) holistic education
(ii) integrated training
(iii) youth empowerment
(iv) interdisciplinary research as vehicles to reach our global health and national HIV goals
faster, smarter and better
 To achieve our targets in the next 120 months



(a) Strengthened Hope Institute for Transformational Leadership & Development
(b) A Built and fully functional Hope University Semuto (HUS)
(c) Established Hope Social Enterprise (HOSE) unit supporting HUS and HI-TLD
 We will need a resource investment envelope of USD 35 million
 Hence our “One Dollar, One Person Living With HIV” Resource
Mobilization, Investment & Endowment Drive.
Our Key Ask & Key Thank You
 We need your technical resource support in
preparing a bankable business plan of
international standard to be used as a
negotiation document in accessing venture and
private equity capital for our three-tiered social
business in education and training for improved
health
 We thank all of you our friends and Dev Partners
who have made us a success over this 23 year period
http://www.youcaring.com/focagifo-374533