{"id":3516,"date":"2023-07-13T15:39:05","date_gmt":"2023-07-13T13:39:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mag2go.de\/horemi\/?p=3516"},"modified":"2024-01-18T17:03:12","modified_gmt":"2024-01-18T16:03:12","slug":"uganda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/horemi.org\/en\/uganda\/","title":{"rendered":"Uganda \u2013 a country of kids (in need)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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The average age of Ugan\u00adda\u2019s entire popu\u00adla\u00adtion (47.3 people as of 2022) is 15.7 years \u2014 thanks to 21 million chil\u00addren. Of these, 2 million, or almost 10 percent, no longer have parents. Like the majority of the chil\u00addren of HOREMI \u2026 In the capital Kampala alone, 15,000 orphans are report\u00adedly strug\u00adgling as street chil\u00addren. They often become victims of child traf\u00adficking, sexual exploita\u00adtion, drug traf\u00adfickers or dangerous child labor in gold mines. AIDS is also a major problem: Currently, nearly 100,000 chil\u00addren under the age of 14 alone are said to be infected with HIV.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite some improve\u00adments in recent decades, Uganda remains one of the poorest coun\u00adtries in the world. Educa\u00adtion still is an unaf\u00adford\u00adable commodity for many fami\u00adlies. The situ\u00ada\u00adtion is partic\u00adu\u00adlarly precar\u00adious in rural areas, where almost 80 percent of the people live, espe\u00adcially in northern Uganda. Here, parents are often forced to send their chil\u00addren to work instead of school, or to marry off girls far too young so that the entire family can make ends meet. In the days of Corona, when Uganda set the world record with complete school closures lasting almost two years, this trend was further fueled \u2014 with fatal conse\u00adquences for the future of the chil\u00addren and the country. After all, educa\u00adtion is the most impor\u00adtant way out of poverty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Uganda in numbers<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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1000$<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Annual income<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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47.3 million<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inhab\u00adi\u00adtants<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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46 percent<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chil\u00addren<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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2 million<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Orphans<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

15.7 years<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Average age<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Life expectancy and causes of death<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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The health care system in Uganda has devel\u00adoped, but there are still only a maximum of 9 physi\u00adcians per 100,000 inhab\u00adi\u00adtants \u2014 depending on the region, signif\u00adi\u00adcantly fewer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Life expectancy is currently around 63.7 years, and infant mortality has declined but is still close to 6 percent. A woman has an average of 4.7 chil\u00addren during her life\u00adtime, and 0.43 percent of mothers die during child\u00adbirth or as a result of it. To stay healthy, access to clean water is elemen\u00adtary \u2014 but only 56 percent are granted it. Accord\u00adingly, diar\u00adrheal diseases are the fifth leading cause of death (5.8%), espe\u00adcially among chil\u00addren. However, AIDS (HIV) ranks first among the causes of death with over 10 percent, followed by influenza\/pneumonia (9 %) and malaria (6.5 %). Road traffic deaths have increased enor\u00admously, now occu\u00adpying 4th place with almost 6.3%.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Economy<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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With a gross national product of less than $1,000 per capita per year, Uganda is a very poor country. As recently as 2003, 82 % of the working popu\u00adla\u00adtion earned less than one dollar a day. The main exports are coffee and bananas, but tea, fish, tobacco and cocoa also play a role. In 2022, large gold deposits were discov\u00adered and oil is also increas\u00adingly being extracted \u2014 at the expense of the envi\u00adron\u00adment and even inside protected national parks, which play a major role in tourism. If any of the revenue from the gold and oil boom will actu\u00adally reach the people also remains to be seen.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Education <\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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School educa\u00adtion in Uganda lasts 16 years, including 3 years of nursery. Since 1997, atten\u00addance at elemen\u00adtary school (7 years) and now secondary school (4 years middle, 2 years high school) in state schools has offi\u00adcially been free of charge.  The average length of school atten\u00addance increased from 2.8 years in 1990 to 6.2 years in 2015. But to maxi\u00admize literacy rates (76.5% in 2018), for-profit, fee-based private schools were also allowed. Today, 27 percent of elemen\u00adtary schools and 66 percent of secondary schools are private. Over\u00adcrowded class\u00adrooms with 60 to 80 students and a lack of equip\u00adment do not make it easy for chil\u00addren to learn. Effec\u00adtive inde\u00adpen\u00addent quality control, espe\u00adcially of private schools, is lacking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Private schools charge an average of $130 per child per year, and fees increase with grade level; school supplies, uniforms and exams usually cost extra. For low-income fami\u00adlies, this is an insur\u00admount\u00adable hurdle. And so far, only 15 percent of students attend secondary school; the average length of school atten\u00addance in 2015 was around 6.3 years. Two-thirds of chil\u00addren leave school prema\u00adturely without grad\u00adu\u00adating. So there is still a long way to go before the declared goal of 11.4 years of average school atten\u00addance is achieved.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Geography<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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At 241,550 km\u00b2, land\u00adlocked Uganda covers an area equiv\u00ada\u00adlent to about 68 percent of that of Germany. About 36,000 km\u00b2, or 15 percent, of it is taken up by rivers and lakes, the largest being Lake Victoria. Uganda is surrounded by its neigh\u00adbors South Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and the DR Congo. The capital is Kampala, which is home to nearly 5 million people and about 10 percent of the popu\u00adla\u00adtion (47.3 million).<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Peoples and religions<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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47.3 million people were living in Uganda at the end of 2022. If the current popu\u00adla\u00adtion growth of 2.9% continues, the number would almost double by 2060 \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Uganda unites around 60 ethnic groups, some with their own languages, cultures and reli\u00adgions. The largest groups are Bantu (60 %), Nilotes and Hami\u00adtonilotes (together 24 %). Most believers are Chris\u00adtians (85 %), followed by Sunni Muslims (13.7 %) and the Pente\u00adcostal move\u00adment (11.1 %). Recently, more\u00adover, the influ\u00adence of the Evan\u00adgel\u00adical Church from the United States has been increasing.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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History and government<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Since the 15th century Uganda was a kingdom, from 1894 it was a British protec\u00adtorate and since October 1962 the country has been inde\u00adpen\u00addent. The first pres\u00adi\u00addent was King Mutesa, and the first prime minister was Milton Obote, who deposed the king in 1966. After a mili\u00adtary coup in 1971, Idi Amin began his reign of violence, and Obote took over again from 1980 to 1986. In terms of human rights viola\u00adtions through terror, torture and murder of oppo\u00adsi\u00adtion members the two dicta\u00adtors were in no way infe\u00adrior. In 1986 Museveni took over the pres\u00adi\u00addency after a guer\u00adrilla war, and the first elec\u00adtions followed in 1989. Today Uganda is a pres\u00adi\u00adden\u00adtial republic with a one-party system that uses both auto\u00adcratic and demo\u00adc\u00adratic elements. The pres\u00adi\u00addent is still Pres\u00adi\u00addent Museveni, who has been in office for 37 years and was last confirmed in 2021. The offi\u00adcial languages are English and Swahili.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Would you like to give the chil\u00addren of HOREMI a helping hand? You can donate quickly and easily here<\/a>. Thank you very much!<\/mark>
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You can find all the ways to support HOREMI on our dona\u00adtions page.<\/a><\/strong><\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Uganda is a very \u201cyoung\u201d country: a full 46 percent of the popu\u00adla\u00adtion are chil\u00addren under the age of 14!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":3536,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-horemi","category-unlisted"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/horemi.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/horemi.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/horemi.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horemi.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horemi.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3516"}],"version-history":[{"count":47,"href":"https:\/\/horemi.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3516\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4521,"href":"https:\/\/horemi.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3516\/revisions\/4521"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horemi.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/horemi.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horemi.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horemi.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}