What are the Epicentre’s programme goals?
Kibaale is administratively organized in 33 sub counties, 211 parishes and 1635 villages. URDT will start with supporting the establishment of 16 Epicentres at sub county level in 2012. More sub-counties will be covered after the next cycle of graduation from ARU in 2015.
Each EM will train a group of 10 para-extension workers (PEs) on annual basis. They will impart knowledge and skills to enhance community driven and systems changing development. They will be deployed first at parish level and have a case load of at least 10 households.
The project plans that by the end of 2017, there are 16 epicentres established and operational. By December 2017, at least 3.400 households (approximately 30.000 people of which at least 17.000 are youth) in 340 villages have improved the quality of their live, in particular in health and income.
The programme’s indicators for success include:
1. households participating in the program have a creative life orientation: they have moved from the fatalism and helplessness to a life orientation where they work towards their aspirations; they master sustainable development skills and apply systems thinking to ensure that they address roots causes to attain prosperity
2. households are healthy, they apply environmental sanitation measures and have diversified their sources of income
3. households show citizenship behavior: young people transcend tribal, religious and gender barriers and work together to create a society that works for everybody as a way of building a new Uganda
4. community action plans implemented in identify strategic areas of intervention, commit to work together, transcend traditional gender, religious, tribal barriers and realize collective results and at the end of the day they do it together because of collective efforts.
5. development agencies in the respective sub counties have capacity to apply human and civil rights approaches. The organisations design and implement programmes based on basic rights rather than on needs.
6. youth, women and people with disabilities in the project areas participate in civic and economic development programmes. Their economic and social status has improved.
URDT expects that kind of concentration will spark off spontaneous transformation in the district as more and more leadership will emerge. It is expected therefore that by the end of 2021 the entire district will be covered: 34.200 households will be reached and estimated 171.000 youth.
The epicentre programme will lead to self-propelling development as soon as the above indicators are in place.