Empowering Young Women
“Water flows where water flows”
As Africans say, “Water flows where water flows”, meaning it is hard work to direct help toward the neediest places… the places off the path. This is the work of Backroads Philanthropy.
We provide orphaned girls in Uganda who have escaped child marriage, but remain at risk, with full scholarships to boarding school, as well as a nurturing home, and holistic supplemental learning during the 18 weeks of school breaks.
When they enter our program, the young women we serve are empty-handed, hungry, traumatized, and broken-hearted. We give them clothing, shoes, a mattress, medical care, sanitary pads, malaria medicine, and a support system with mentorship and life-skills learning from our Ugandan staff team and volunteers. After a time of healing, regular meals, and trusting in their new lives, these young women flourish and thrive.
Our Founder and CEO, Catherine Willis, first engaged with Uganda in 2012, as a Rotary volunteer. Over a decade later, she launched Backroads Philanthropy to follow her heart and dedicate herself to humanitarian impact in one of the poorest regions of Africa.
Our most recent scholarship students, pictured here with Catherine, are from a Sudanese refugee camp in Northern Uganda… a region which the United Nations calls the greatest humanitarian crisis on earth. All three of these young women were orphaned at ages 5 and 6, and have lived in an over-crowded refugee camp ever since, where they struggled to sustain themselves by collecting and selling firewood. We rejoice with them in their new lives.
Thank you for your support.
Your Gift Goes Far in Africa.
For tax deduction purposes, USA EIN #: 33-1953726
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