Uganda

Uganda, despite its history of conflict, has emerged as a country of relative peace and now hosts 1.6 million refugees from neighboring countries. However, this perceived stability has led to dwindling funding and resources, even though 2.4 million people are still in urgent need of humanitarian assistance. Among these, nearly 940,000 children are at risk, including 42,838 unaccompanied minors, and more than half of them require psychosocial support. With new refugees arriving from South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda's resources are stretched thin, contributing to high rates of school dropouts, malnutrition, and sexual abuse.

In 2023 alone, we supported 32,243 children and adults. Our programs provide essential psychosocial and mental health support to refugee children and youth, including psychological first aid, individual counseling, group therapy through programs like TeamUp and EASE, and suicide prevention outreach. We also extend this support to caregivers and teachers through initiatives such as BeThere, which helps caregivers, and CORE, a professional development and wellbeing method for teachers.In addition to direct mental health interventions, our ReachNow program trains community members to identify children in need of mental health care and guide them to available services. To address the educational challenges, we facilitate access to learning through alternative methods, such as our evidence-based EdTech innovation *Can’t Wait to Learn*. This helps children catch up on missed schooling through accelerated learning programs. Furthermore, War Child’s child protection caseworkers provide case management and referral services for children at risk or who have been victims of violence, abuse, or exploitation.