By Godwin Abedican

Arua

As the family is the foundation of all vocations in the church, Arua diocese has rolled out a family protection program dubbed “Faithful House” aimed at addressing family challenges among couples and building strong families to affirm life and avoid risks.

This program is supported by Maternal Life International through its affiliate Maternal Life Uganda. This program originated from Masaka catholic diocese which started in 2005.

It comes as a result of a consultation between Maternal Life Uganda and Catholic Relief Services after which a curriculum was developed on prevention of HIV amongst couples in the families given the rising cases of HIV infection among married people, also highlighting other family challenges which this program seeks to address.

The program commenced in the diocese with a 5 days training of trainers from Monday 23^rd to Friday 27^th October 2023 at Christus Centre Ediofe,  is expected to be rolled out in the diocese gradually with the trained traversing the diocese teaching couples on family life and how to handle challenges in families.

According to Gonzaga Lubega, a facilitator in the training from Masaka catholic diocese, with parental involvement key in family lives, there is need to create a mindset change through such programs. “This program will help couples to bond, improve on the effectiveness of their communication and parenting especially on how the parents’ involvement in the life of a child for first a thousand days i.e. from conception to two years is very vital in the life of a human being. Much of the challenges we have come from the families.

Couples themselves have testified that they have not been having a shared responsibility, they have not been putting their finances together with divided responsibilities especially with the women taking up most of the family responsibilities. After this training, they are promising to take part in their family, hand in hand which will also help in the growth of the church,” he said.

 
Gonzaga Lubega the main facilitator and team leader from Maternal Life Uganda with Paskazia Lubega his wife
 
Maternal Life International and Maternal Life Uganda in this program only empower the diocese and leave everything in the hands of the diocese especially after training the couples and will also be responsible for periodic evaluations and follow-ups of the program and its progress.

Meanwhile Paskazia Lubega, a co facilitator and wife to the team leader Gonzaga Lubega says unlike empowerment done by other partners targeting only women, the church chooses the couple approach. “Women empowerment is good but some organizations are empowering women to be abusive to their husbands, but in this approach we are bringing both husband and wife together and we are saying we are not supposed to leave all the work to the women but let’s work together in love.

We empower these women showing them that working with your husband is good and actually if you work with your husband, your love increases you bond as a couple and this is what we are telling them,” Paskazia said.

In the first engagement in the diocese held in July this year, there were 20 couples involved out of which 10 have been selected to be trained in facilitation and will move in the whole diocese to offer the same knowledge to other couples within the diocese.

Moses Azabo Sakka, from Lua Chapel Aripea parish a participant in the training says this will help grassroots family challenges much as he anticipates challenges in the field of work which he says they have been well equipped to handle. 

According to Lucy Candiru, also a trainee for the program implementation, given the topics discussed women will get the chance to also participate in family building fully

This program that started in 2005 with three piloting countries Uganda, Rwanda and Ethiopia in Africa was two years later evaluated and has currently been scaled up to over 20 African countries.

Refresher courses are expected to be held annually to close the gaps realized in the program implementation.

COVER PHOTO: The participants during the training as Gonzaga Lubega the main facilitator and his wife Paskazia Lubega give instructions assisted by Asuta Eyeru a translator during the training at Ediofe By Godwin Abedican