Outbox is a technology-based innovation hub in Kampala. They assist new and upcoming African technology entrepreneurs with workspace, business incubation and technical training programs. As they simply put it, ‘we’re a launchpad for new ideas’.

Outbox is interested in a Diversity & Inclusion initiative within their organisation, so Outbox and Make 12.4% Work are exploring the opportunities for a joint initiative looking around accessible technology. The focus of initiative would be to create universally accessible app experiences.

Outbox has a central mission of supporting African entrepreneurs by providing entrepreneurship, innovation and technology infrastructure through the growth of inclusive communities that foster talent and create value. They work on building inclusive communities for a wide target group (students, developers, researchers, organisations) that entrepreneurs can use for collaboration. Through several partnerships Outbox can help them raise money for their start-ups and access markets, and profits are re-injected in order to increase impact. Outbox embraces central values of sustainability, collaboration, openness and transparency, solving real problems, commitment and personal excellence. They provide several different services, including an academy where individuals can be trained in software development, civic technology and data initiatives, communities where knowledge can be shared, incubation to support entrepreneurs with resources and infrastructure, initiatives, and labs.

Read more about Outbox and their initiatives at: https://outbox.co.ug

GOAL Uganda is humanitarian organisation that emphasises building community resilience and socio-economic development. Their focus lies in improving the lives of disadvantaged communities as demonstrated by their first activities in 1979, in response to the famine in Northern Uganda.

GOAL was one of the first members of the Make 12.4% Work Initiative and are committed to becoming more disability inclusive as an organization as well as within their programs. Disability inclusion assessments have already been conducted and Make 12.4% Work continues to follow up by supporting their actions.

Currently, GOAL uses a systems approach in the implementation of programmes in the water, sanitation & hygiene, agricultural livelihoods, and health systems strengthening sectors. The organisation’s mission statement revolves around ensuring that the most vulnerable individuals and communities have access to fundamental rights, from basic needs to economic opportunities. They envision a world where every individual has equal rights and access to resources and opportunities. GOAL currently operates in 21 districts in Uganda, with field offices in 5: Abim, Agogo, Bugiri, Kaabong and Lira. Their work in these communities has resulted in sustainable and meaningful outcomes.

Read more at: https://www.goalglobal.org/countries/uganda

The Uganda National Apiculture Development Organisation (TUNADO) is the apex body recognised by the public and government of Uganda to coordinate all value chain actors in the apiculture industry. TUNADO is a membership body that unites producers (beekeepers), processors, packers, service providers (trainers, researches, marketers, equipment manufacturers etc), development partners, government and all other stakeholders towards apiculture development in Uganda.

TUNADO approached Make 12.4% Work when undertaking an inception study, in order to ensure their data collection tools were disability inclusive. The 12.4% Initiative assisted them in measuring the level of impairment. TUNADO has signed a proof of commitment and are planning disability awareness trainings for their staff.

TUNADO was formed after realising that the apiculture sector was disorganised and yet held the potential to contribute significantly to rural household income, poverty reduction and national economic development as well as environmental conservation. TUNADO is incorporated with registrar of companies as a company limited by guarantee, Certificate No. 62239. TUNADO represents 1,200,000 beekeepers organised in 310 diverse memberships (associations, companies, cooperatives and groups) and TUNADO membership continues to grow. Their vision is “A vibrant membership based apex body coordinating apiculture industry in Uganda for sustainable national development”. TUNADO’s central mission is “to provide a national platform for apiculture sector growth through capacity building, lobbying and advocacy, market development, product diversification and information sharing”. The core values of the organisation are accountability, innovativeness, inclusivity, voluntarism, and membership-centred.

To achieve this, they work towards multiple objectives, such as raising awareness about the value and significance of apiculture for the national economy, promoting Ugandan honey both on a regional and international scale, aiding the standardisation of Ugandan honey in order to meet international standards, and establishing an information centre to assist the industry’s research and development. TUNADO has a diverse 310 members that continues to grow, representing at least 1,200,000 beekeepers.

Read more about TUNADO at:http://www.tunadobees.org/

Solar Now is a for profit social company with Dutch origins, based in Uganda. Solar Now sells and finances solar home systems in order to transform lives by providing high quality solar energy and financing solutions across East Africa. They provide four areas of Solar Solutions, in households, small businesses, farming and corporate solution.Their aim is to provide quality, sustainable energy solutions at affordable prices through client focused, committed professionals. Their mission comprises three main objectives; transform the lives of East Africans, address the huge market need for energy in East Africa with quality solutions and make quality solar accessible through affordable finance.

Together with the Make 12.4% Work Initiative, they have provided three internship positions for young persons with disabilities in 2019. In addition, Make 12.4% Work has already conducted a disability awareness training for their staff and are looking forward to further steps around inclusive employment.

In order to achieve their mission, Solar Now aims to be their clients’ partner for life. This means ensuring continuous upgrades to every clients’ system over time to include the latest SolarNow solutions for homes, farms, schools, health centres or businesses. They provide a wide and expanding choice of high quality solutions to match the clients’ wants and needs. In addition, they are committed to addressing the huge unmet market need for energy in East Africa. They focus on quality about trust and relationships as well as products. Lastly, SolarNow believes access to finance is the key to spreading solar, therefore they are committed to offering affordable and flexible credit with every solar solution. Currently there are 47 SolarNow branches across Uganda and they aim to expand their presence in East Africa.

Read more about SolarNow here: https://www.solarnow.eu

War Child is an independent and impartial, international non-governmental organisation that invests in a peaceful future for children and young people affected by armed conflict. Their mission is to protect children from violence by using creative and involving workshops that unleash a child’s inner strength. War Child Uganda enables children to build their resilience, free from trauma and violence. The projects in Uganda are designed to support and protect children and young people by improving their psychosocial wellbeing. Together with education activities, children are enabled to develop coping skills, build resilience and recover from the consequences of conflict.

With collaboration with Make 12.4% Work, War Child will place two internship positions for young persons with disabilities in 2019. In addition, Make 12.4% Work will organise a disability awareness training for the staff this January. Other plans for partnership around inclusion are on the way, strengthening cooperation with Make 12.4% Work.

War Child adopts three mutually supportive intervention strategies to realise positive change in the lives of children and young people; direct support in activities and projects with children and young people, building capacity of parents, communities, organisations and institutions, advocacy campaigns targeting national and international decision makers to ensure that laws, policies and practices support safe and healthy development of children. Their four main projects in Uganda are focused around an initiative to enhance resilience through psychosocial support and mental health services, a global programme providing quality education for all children through educational games on tablets, agribusiness skills for refugee youth, and a major consortium-led project that meets the needs of out-of-school children through accelerated education programming and psychosocial support activities. Currently, there are 6,681 child participants and 2,390 adult participants in Uganda.

Read more at: https://www.warchildholland.org

Voluntary Action for Development (VAD) is an Ugandan NGO recognised as a non profit making organization. The organization works in several districts with the rural poor and disadvantaged communities in order to improve livelihoods.

VAD received a training in disability awareness from Make 12.4% Work. As a follow up, they will receive guidance from Make 12.4% Work on how to become more disability inclusive as an organization. As the executive director Benedict Male put it, ‘Light for the World gave us a very good awareness on how to work with people with disabilities. We will ensure that we now start disability inclusion in our programs and within the organisation as we now have more knowledge on disability.’

Their activities are based around implementing development oriented projects such as water, hygiene and sanitation improvement, sustainable agriculture, MHM training and support with provision of pads, family economic empowerment and rural micro-credit schemes. VAD is known for providing Ugandan communities with safe and clean water facilities by constructing wells, protected springs and rainwater harvesting tanks. Furthermore, they offer sanitation and hygiene facilities to several vulnerable groups, including school children, the elderly, people with disabilities, and those with HIV/AIDS. Their partnerships consist of project funding and doing business with the poor. They provide practice demonstration trainings for schools and communities and support income-generating activities for women and the youth. In addition, VAD is an active participant of several other networks; the Community Integrated Development Initiative (CIDI), Volunteer efforts for Development concern (VEDCO), and Maganjo Farmers Association (MAFA). In 2013, VAD was the proud winner of the Stars Foundation Impact Award, being recognised as an outstanding locally-led organisation that improves the lives of children and young people.

Mango Tree Educational Enterprises is a private company in Uganda that develops innovative, interactive education materials and low-literacy communication tools for grassroots education. Their central mission is to provide African educators with the best tools and methods, as well as to serve as a socially responsible business model for Uganda. This embodies their vision of being a company that empowers Africa with the best educational tools possible.

Mango Tree has been with Make 12.4% Work from the beginning and actually facilitated the co-creation of the Initiative involving creative designers and young persons with disabilities. During the design process, Make 12.4% Work was thought out and some practical elements were already delivered, like the Make 12.4% Work logo. Mango Tree also designed the first promotion materials. Mango Tree continues to be with us, and think along on how to continuously refine and develop Make 12.4% Work. We are looking forward to next steps of partnering with Mango Tree.

Mango Tree uses a unique methodology since 2000, known as the Mango Tree Cycle, which uses four main principles. It focuses on understanding the needs of clients and users, applying global perspectives to local solutions, providing relevant and accessible information, and engaging in interactive teaching and learning. In order to achieve this, they use a targeted design approach and perform co-creation workshops to create an effective product that satisfies the client. They work on projects with impact, addressing social needs with their services. Mango Tree offers co-creation, tailored strategic design, storytelling, and education.

Read more about Mango Tree: http://mangotreeuganda.org

The youth based organization Kampabits is based in the Design Hub, in  Kampala. Their main focus is enhancing youth employment through ICT, particularly by reaching out to the less privileged youth in order to improve their lives with the use of ICT multimedia. The partnership between Kampabits and Make 12.4% Work involves mainstream ICT training for young persons with disabilities. The Make 12.4% Work Initiative identifies persons with disabilities and refers them to Kampabits for a traineeship. Currently, there are 9 deaf trainees and 2 physically impaired that are following a six-month training to improve their skills and development in IT.

Amongst their activities, Kampabits sets up trainings on web development and free programming sessions as well as providing trainings in life skills and sexual reproductive health rights. The central vision Kampabits uphold is helping the youth provide a positive contribution to societal development. They especially want the youth from informal settlements to have stronger prospects of formal employment.

In order to aid the vulnerable youth, Kampabits want to improve access to productive employment and the ability to cope with the social environment using creativity and innovation.

Their main objectives include increased prospects of self-employment for youth from informal settlements, improved capacity of dealing with social factors that affect their lives, and assuring relevance, effectiveness, replication and innovation within the organisation.

Several Kampabits alumni demonstrate the success of the organization and the extent to which they have benefited from trainings by gaining employment and empowerment.

Read more about what Kampabits does and how they achieve their goals on their website:

http://www.kampabits.org

Johanniter-Unfall-Hilfe e.V. is a German non-governmental organisation, founded in 1952 and dedicated to expertise in the field of first aid, ambulance services, social service programmes and other projects in the medical and social field in Germany.

The organisation is currently preparing for a project in the Kyangwali refugee settlement to support people with disabilities through income generating activities and livelihood assistance. Johanniter reached out to Make 12.4% Work for advice and assistance on disability inclusion for the project.

Johanniter International Assistance is part of Johanniter-Unfall-Hilfe e.V. and implements development cooperation and humanitarian assistance programmes worldwide, with the focus on health, nutrition, WASH and livelihoods. In Uganda, Johanniter focus on providing assistance to refugees and hosting communities.

To read more about their organisation and international projects, visit their website: https://www.johanniter.de/die-johanniter/johanniter-unfall-hilfe/start/

Sawa World is a non-governmental organisation that uses an innovative approach to instantly transform the lives of unemployed and marginalized youth by providing the skills to start micro-businesses in one day, using locally-created and simple solutions to self-employment. Their goal is to impact 1 billion youth by 2030.

Together with Make 12.4% Work, they will explore how they can make their skills development packages inclusive for the youth with a disability. Make 12.4% Work is currently planning to place an intern with a disability at Sawa World to support the mobilisation of people with disabilities in the areas where they work. Sawa World mainly works at mobilising the youth from slum areas, and their collaboration with Make 12.4% Work will expand this by targeting disability inclusion.

Sawa World has received several awards due to the success of their work, and their impact has already seen far-reaching results. According to research, 450,820 people have been reached with local solutions since 2011. Since 2014, 6,776 businesses started with local solutions.

Read more about Sawa World at: https://www.sawaworld.org

Healthy Entrepreneurs is a social enterprise and innovative business model focused on the supply of health education, services and products. Their vision embraces basic health care for all. They work towards increasing access to basic health care in remote areas in order to enable development and self-reliance. In order to do so, their mission is to train men and women to become independent health workers, Healthy Entrepreneurs, to create a network that allows the delivery of affordable health products and services to the last mile. The central goal of the organisation is to mobilise entrepreneurs with innovative and practical solutions that correspond to the demands of families in the most remote, isolated communities. Through passionate entrepreneurs, isolated villages can be transformed into strong, healthy, well-informed communities.

Under Make 12.4% Work, Healthy Entrepreneurs is piloting to make their approach disability inclusive in the Rwenzori region. The two new groups of Healthy Entrepreneurs involve entrepreneurs with a disability. In addition, the large group of Healthy Entrepreneurs in the selected pilot districts have been sensitised on disability. To support them in providing information about disability related services and organisations, the Healthy Entrepreneurs have been provided with the ReferAll App on their phones. The pilot program is an opportunity to learn about disability inclusion and room for upscaling.

Healthy Entrepreneurs adopts the last-mile distribution model to reach isolated communities and provide access to healthcare, making it cheaper, more effective and more sustainable. Their model identifies potential entrepreneurs, preferably women, with a basic knowledge of health care and a secondary school diploma. Their training teaches basic health and the set of health products and entrepreneurial skills needed to establish independent mini-pharmacies. An entrepreneur invests $25 USD and receives a starter kit with $100 USD worth of basic medical products, which needs to be paid back within one year, and a solar powered tablet used for education and monitoring. The Healthy Entrepreneurs model is unique in the management of their end-to-end distribution chains. They buy products as cheaply as possible and provide direct delivery to the entrepreneurs on site. In addition, the model proves to be effective due to its long-term impact, requiring a single investment in startup cost to guarantee basic healthcare and profit generation for years. Currently, Healthy Entrepreneurs is active in 4 other countries, having reached 6 million people through their 3500 entrepreneurs.

Read more about Healthy Entrepreneurs at: https://www.healthyentrepreneurs.nl