Gulu – ETC of PWD

Development, Disability, Music in Northern Uganda, Vocational Training

Viva Wer Waa: music for change

The third cohort of the Viva@GDPU music for social change project is now up and running, sponsored by Viva la Visa the UK specialist visa company for the entertainment industry.

The name of the project has been changed to reflect the new ambition and scope. It’s now called Viva Wer Waa (Wer Waa is ‘our song’ in Luo).

Aims

Viva Wer Waa is aimed at:

Talent development, through building the capacity of young people with disabilities in music: writing, recording and performance.
Advocating for and amplifying the rights of people with disability (PWDs) through the power of music.
Improving the livelihood of the project beneficiaries now and in the long term; sustainable lives for them, their families and their communities.
Improving the quality of songs produced by PWDs in Uganda.
2 x new trainees will be trained in studio production.

Performance

Much greater concentration will be given to performance, search for public recognition and outreach work in the local communities. This next step will include the recruitment of a dedicated music promoter to promote the trained Viva artists.

The new documentary explains the work of the programme and some of the obstacles faced by young musicians with disabilities.

More music videos will be made, this is the most recent, a plea for young people to avoid peer pressure in their lives:

Viva la Visa have already started a substantial social media campaign in the West (see their Facebook page or #vivawerwaa ). Much more work on social media will follow.

The Viva sound

The main goal of the Viva studio at Gulu Disabled Persons Union (GDPU) is to promote local content, especially the use of local instruments, bringing the unique Ugandan traditional sounds and music for the whole world to enjoy.

Over 40 songs and 13 (thirteen) videos and one documentary have been made so far showing the impact of the Viva la Visa studio on our beneficiaries.

As part of Viva Wer Waa, 2 X new PWD trainees have already been recruited to work on studio production and we hope they will become full time producers by the end of this cohort.

Impact

Through this grant support from Viva La Visa, the team in Gulu have already witnessed a great change in the social wellbeing and integration of youth with disabilities. The studio has allowed young people to join those from whom they were once excluded: for example through composing traditional marriage and praise songs: – Gospel songs, lakubukubu songs (Luo traditional songs) and Luo tunes to the community: change through music.

Excitement

Very exciting developments and so many thanks to Viva La Visa for giving the funds to make this happen. Do keep looking at the You Tube channel for more videos and posts here for more news.

Viva Wer Waa Project Summary: click for details

The new phase of the project seeks to identify a music promoter to promote, market and link our artists to new opportunities.

The new phase will offer post training support for graduates from the first two cohorts of the Viva training project

The project seeks to empower and develop the leadership structures of the Uganda Association for Artist with Disabilities, to enable their leadership structures and development.

Enrol 2 new trainees with disabilities for 6 months training in production, music recording and composing skills and 6-month post training support.

Disseminate the music and songs composed by the trainees through social media / You Tube /live streaming in accordance with regulations and safeguarding best practice

The new project seeks to offer Outreach music shows in rural communities: presenting and performing music produced by the musicians at market days and other public events.

The project will provide basic literacy for artists, so that they can write and record their songs.

Develop the profile of the artists at the studio to the general public through a functional website for the music programme.

Develop the sustainability of the music studio by promoting it to members of the community as a chargeable service.

Give opportunities for people with disabilities to bring out their talents and be publicly visible and change people’s perceptions through music.

Most of the songs composed are in local language (Luo) which is widely understood by a population of over 30 million (Acholi, Langi, Alur, Luo of Sudan, Japadola, and Jaluo of Kenya).

Most of the produced songs are educative songs tailored to the youth and the community on good morals, negative attitudes of the community towards disability and education, and social wellbeing of persons with disabilities in the different communities.

Want To Know More?

If you would like to know more about the ETC of PWD charity who manage the Viva Wer Waa programme and the VPep skills training programme please go to our Home page

If you would like to give something, please go to our Donate page.

If you would like to know more about Gulu Disabled Persons Union GDPU) who deliver Viva Wer Waa please go to their website or Facebook page.

If you would like to know more about Viva La Visa please go to their website.

Many Thanks.

Disability, GDPU, Gulu, Vocational Training

VPEP: The V Plus Empowerment Project

The V Plus Empowerment Project (VPEP) May 2025 to April 2026

A new project started in May 2025, managed by the team at Gulu Disabled Persons Union (GDPU). This new project developed from the previous VPlusPlus programme and the feedback during reflection meetings: the training and awareness sessions for beneficiaries and wider community stakeholders.

Peer Mentors in their VPEP sponsored uniforms

The new VPEP programme is delivered by GDPU project officers and the Peer Mentors from the scheme developed in the previous project. What did that project do? What did we learn from it?.

V PlusPlus:

provided ongoing training and support to previous graduates of the vocational training programme and other young people a total of 500 in all.
formed a team of peer mentors consisting of young people with disabilities to act as advocates for other people with disability in the local communities where they live.
provided information and training in safeguarding, sexual and reproductive health, disability rights.
supported young entrepreneurs in making their businesses successful.
provided support and sessions to 500 people with disability from May 2024 to April 2025.

All the highlights of last year’s VPlusPlus project can be found in the blog here and, of course, in the Final Report here.

Peer Mentors with Safeguarding Manager and Project Officer

The main activities this year 2025 to 2026 will be:

Capacity development for peer mentors, their capacity will be further developed by providing training in: life skills; advocacy; awareness; communication; reporting skills and safeguarding, The training help improve their abilities to best support their communities.
Tailor made training, young people with disabilities will be supported by their peers who have gained skills in different areas and shown significant achievement. This will develop a peer-to-peer support system by: visits to workshops: training: home visits and gathering students in one location to have the refresher and peer to peer support training. Identified gaps such financial literacy, life skills and skills development will be covered. Last year’s training sessions on how to make liquid soap were very popular, so they will be continued. A new training activity will be developed. Peer mentors and their communities feel poultry rearing would be a useful and profitable occupation without demanding too much initial investment. It will be included in VPEP.
Safeguarding, persons with disabilities are often exposed to different forms of abuses within their communities. They face sexual harassment, rape, and mistreatment from family members and community. The project builds the capacity of peer mentors to be able to identify, report and solve conflicts between family members within their communities.

Safeguarding training by a Peer Mentor

Documenting success stories, providing profiles and success stories from those who have been involved in the programmes over the years, to motivate and build on success. Every project success is worth documenting, evidence of resilience, commitments and hard work put in place by our beneficiaries to change their economic status. It’s also important to document challenges faced and overcome by our project beneficiaries.
Referring and linking those who don’t have any income generating activities or are unemployed, to the different workshops and opportunities in their home locations.
Providing loans to those who have previously benefited from training programmes, to buy large pieces of capital equipment for example, or to start up their own business. Funded by the revolving loan fund established in 2023.
Continual regular reflection meetings, with small and large groups, to seek their views on programme properties: what works well and what doesn’t. Regular reflection meetings provide meaningful monitoring and evaluations of all the activities delivered.

The future

Sexual and Reproductive Health Training for Peer Mentors

VPEP builds on previous success, the Peer Mentor programme is innovative and has huge potential to develop the lives of young people with disability in Gulu and surrounding districts. An exciting programme to follow, which you can do by going to our project news here.

Want To Know More?

If you would like to know more about the ETC of PWD charity that manages the Vplus plus programme please go to our Home page

If you would like to give something, please go to our Donate page.

If you would like to know more about Gulu Disabled Persons Union (GDPU) please go to their website or Facebook page.

Many Thanks.

Disability, GDPU, Gulu, Vocational Training

VPlusPlus Project Summary

This is a summary of a longer, more detailed report that you can read online here, or download from here.

GDPU

Gulu Disabled Persons Union (GDPU) reached new milestones over the year to end-April 2025, engaging 500 young disabled persons in business, financial, literacy, numeracy, vocational and life-skills training. GDPU also created a network of 12 peer mentors who connected with over 1,000 young persons with disability across Gulu and surrounding Districts. This network forms a foundation for much greater economic and social inclusion of our young disabled persons than before.

ETC of PWD

These milestones were achieved through the second year of the VPlus Plus project, funded by a grant of UGX 48,960,000 (approximately £10,500) from the small UK-registered Enhancing the Capacity of Persons with Disability (ETC of PWD) charity.

VPlusPlus and VPlus

VPlusPlus was a follow on from the two-year VPlus project for young disabled persons, jointly funded by UK Aid Direct and ETC, which ran from January 2020 to end-March 2023. VPlus trained 119 young disabled persons in seven vocational skill areas together with ‘Plus’ elements of literacy, numeracy, finance and business skills, cultural and community activity, and post-training follow-up support.

VPlus

The follow-up support continued through VPlusPlus, it was recognized that sustainable businesses and employment required more than a short course and a short follow-up period. This recognition was reinforced when 42 (82%) of the 51 attendees of the large reflection meeting held at the end of VPlus Plus reported that they were successfully self-employed, with a further 7 (14%) reporting sustainable employment. The revolving loan scheme played a role in these successes but faced many challenges which have been addressed in various ways.

Project Design

The design of VPlusPlus, especially the tailor-made training component, was determined through reflection meetings of VPlus beneficiaries, including smaller meetings held in more outlying areas. This included training in record keeping, marketing and business planning, literacy, liquid soap manufacturing, social and life skills, Safeguarding was central to VPlusPlus, safeguarding (e.g. preventing gender-based violence) and disability awareness sessions for the wider community. Safeguarding training, allowing, with the help of peer mentors, the tackling of 15 safeguarding issues during the year.

Reflection Meetings

Reflection meetings were a source of information on challenges and successes. Data collected at the large reflection meeting suggested that attendees had earned an average of UGX 295,000 in the last 3 months (ranging from UGX 20,000 to 3,500,000) and had managed to save UGX 41million (average of UGX 800,000 per attendee, ranging from UGX 3,000 to 17,800,000).

Peer Mentors

A major impact of the project has been the creation of a network of peer mentors, to widen access to opportunities and to develop information on challenges faced by isolated persons with disability. Twelve beneficiaries of VPlus project were carefully chosen and provided with relevant training such as in communication, safeguarding, conflict management and data collection. The mentors have:

delivered training
brought together NGOs, government officials and communities
provided on-the-job training in their localities
reduced isolation of young disabled people, worked with families on disability issues
been a reference point for GDPU and others across a wide geographical area.

Challenges

As would be expected, VPlus Plus has faced many challenges, discussed in this report. Those challenges include the limited available budget to meet the high levels of demand from young disabled persons for more social and economic opportunities to improve the quality of their lives.

Conclusion

VPlus Plus has developed effective ways of tackling issues faced by young disabled persons and has created the foundations for uniting communities and agencies in much more extensive work to address the huge scale of issues and demand. This work needs to continue.

If you would like to know more about the ETC of PWD charity that manages the Vplus plus programme please go to our Home page

If you would like to give something, please go to our Donate page.

If you would like to know more about Gulu Disabled Persons Union (GDPU) please go to their website or Facebook page.

Many Thanks.

Disability, GDPU, Gulu, Vocational Training

ETC of PWD Trustees Trip to Gulu 2025: Brenda Addison

This year just two trustees , Chris Khamis and Brenda Addison, visited Gulu Disabled Persons Union in Northern Uganda. These trips are self-financed and do not use the funds of our UK registered charity, Enhancing the Capacity of Persons with Disability.

The focus of our visit was the development of a strategic plan for the ongoing sustainability of GDPU. In this context we held an important meeting with the Board, a workshop with staff, and updating & planning meetings with the leadership team, apart from duties in the Centre.

As always, the most enjoyable parts of the trip were our field visits to ex-trainees and the opportunity to perform opening ceremonies for two new facilities.

Given the uncertain situation in terms of the availability of donations from charities and government aid programmes, ways to generate income from within the work of the Centre are being pushed to the forefront. Examples of this were embedded in the work we undertook during our visit.

The Achievements of our Graduates

We made four visits to the businesses of graduates of our VPlus programme. These ranged from small scale retail outlets in the family home of Rebecca to the larger scale motor cycle repair business of Okoya Joel who now employs five people and has two trainees, and enjoys an impressive turnover.

Expansion of activities were also in evidence, such as at Precillia’s hairdressing salon, where she is taking on apprentices and is moving into the wholesale business of supplying other hairdressers with products for their salons.

Trips to the field: in a hairdressing salon

The New Kiosk

We also had the pleasure of cutting the ribbon to open a new road-side kiosk for a group of young women with hearing impairment.

The formal opening of the retail kiosk at GDPU

These ex-trainees are very industrious in their production of beautiful jewellery. They will benefit from this new outlet which was funded by ETC of PWD although the young women will be funding the interior decoration and upkeep.

Inside the new kiosk: ready for business

Workshop, Studio and Skills

The music studio, Viva la Visa at GDPU, which was established in 2023 with Viva La Visa funding via ETC of PWD, is thriving and developing its activities in a number of directions, always with an eye on income generation for trainees and for the Studio.

Many talented young men and women with disabilities are now participating in this vital creative industries sector and are now planning to establish the first Northern Association for Music and Creative Artists with Disabilities.

Wheelchair Workshop

During our visit we were also asked to officially open the recently established Wheelchair Workshop. This is such an exciting development which has great potential for significant growth. In time, it will provide an essential resource for wheelchair users by undertaking repairs and adaptations, and by designing new wheelchairs and tricycles that will better serve the needs of the population of Gulu.

In fact, prototypes are already set for production and locally produced components made from recycled plastic are currently being used to upgrade and adapt the wheelchairs.

GDPU: Skills Training Programme

Similar Workshops will be established over time which will recruit trainees and also provide work experience for students who are enrolled for GDPU’s general Skills Training Programme. Our visit took place when recruitment for the new academic year was taking place, so we are hopeful for another successful year in 2025. Challenges continue to be faced in terms of the funding of this programme but a range of income streams is being pursued including various mixed models of payment by parents together with sponsorship by funders.

Vocational Training PLUS

The V-PLUS element of ETC of PWD’s funding programme has always been very important to us. It has provided a range of opportunities and experiences for trainees in addition to their skills training including cultural activities, debating, literacy & numeracy and business support.

GDPU Head of Safeguarding with the Peer Mentors

Via a range of initiatives, the PLUS element of GDPU’s work has developed over the last couple of years into support for a team of Peer Mentors, all successful GDPU graduates who travel into the districts around Gulu to provide ex-trainees with on-going support. This is now an extremely important aspect of our funding activity, as the peer mentor team extends its reach beyond ex-trainees and increases its responsibilities to include such activities as providing training and undertaking research activities.

We were able to see this first hand when we visited a leading peer mentor, Precillia in her hairdressing salon, together with Johello who popped in during his busy schedule which now includes a leadership role in his local community.

Safeguarding

The Safeguarding element of the work of GDPU continues to fill us with admiration. With the eminent professionalism of the safeguarding manager and the whole team, everyone knows that security, care and love is assured for all users of GDPU.

A growing element of family support activity is being pursued which is something we will be following with interest over the next year.

Upgrade

Following our visit last year we were determined to help to upgrade the physical appearance and facilities of the Centre and the public spaces. As there is nothing like a lick of paint to uplift the spirits, we took up the suggestion of supporting the painting of the frontage, commissioning the work of a local artist who enhanced the walls with a series of images of people with disabilities.

This was our first “Wow” moment when we arrived on 17th January, and was the backdrop for our leaving photograph on the 24th. Now onto the next fund-raising drive to improve the quality of GDPU’s facilities.

GDPU

As usual, it was a pleasure and a privilege to spend time with everyone. We cannot thank enough everyone who works at GDPU for the commitment they give and the responsibility they take, working under the wonderful leadership of Patrick and Faruk. We promised to return soon and, meanwhile, to keep everyone in our thoughts as we strive to support the exemplary work of GDPU.

If you would like to know more about the ETC of PWD charity that manages the Vplus plus programme please go to our Home page.

If you would like to give something, please go to our Donate page.

If you would like to know more about Gulu Disabled Persons Union (GDPU) please go to their website or Facebook page.

Many Thanks.

Disability, GDPU, Gulu

TWO MAJOR IMPROVEMENTS TO THE GDPU PREMISES

Guest blog by Mary Bennell: ETC of PWD Trustee and Treasurer

The premises AT GDPU (Gulu Disabled Persons Union, Gulu City, Northern Uganda) have been painted and improved over the past few months.

GDPU murals: the newly decorated main office and classrooms

The main buildings have been painted and murals applied to the walls depicting and celebrating people with disability. The offices where the staff and volunteers work have also had new ceilings floors and a lick of paint.

Morale

This has been a real morale booster for the team and the disabled community. It has also made the wider community and people in the neighbourhood sit up and notice GDPU and become interested in what is happening there.

It’s amazing what a bit of smartening up can do for the people who work and train there.

A new stove and kitchen

The former kitchen was a dark and rickety wooden structure with a cast iron sheet on top and two open fires with trivets for the cooking pots.

It was unsatisfactory in so many ways – the open fire a risk to health and safety, the smoke causing the cooks to cough, the difficulty in keeping the area clean and tidy and the environmental impact of using so much wood.

The ETC of PWD trustees agreed to use some of the underspend from the Vplus plus programme to buy new stoves and reconstruct /smarten up the GDPU kitchens.

The new stoves were bought from Aid Africa, a charity specialising in reducing deforestation by installing energy saving stoves. They are the same as used in local hotels and schools.

They are obviously much more efficient than an open fire, having a contained firebox as shown in the pictures.

The whole kitchen has now been improved. There is now a concrete floor and strong working surfaces outside for large pots and an area for food preparation making it a safe and pleasant place for people to cook.

Savings

GDPU was spending at least 50,000 UGX (£10 -15) a week on firewood for the old kitchen. But now, the same amount of wood has lasted for at least 3 weeks and will probably go longer. Fuel costs are down by a third or more, making a considerable saving to the operational costs and programme budgets.

Benefits

It’s these, apparently small, operational costs that really affect institutions like GDPU. If you can’t pay to light the kitchen fire, you can’t feed the trainees and staff. No feeding and the people don’t come or worse, they protest often violently and the whole situation collapses very quickly. There is also of course the environmental benefit of using less firewood!

And, and and….

GDPU Programme staff have also been extremely active. Not only is there the new Vplusplus extension going on, including a fascinating new Peer Mentor programme. But, the Viva @ GDPU (sponsored by Viva la Visa the UK Based visa specialists) music and music production programme has been extended and improved into a second year. All very busy and exciting. More information to come soon.

If you would like to know more about the ETC of PWD charity that manages the Vplus plus programme please go to our Home page.