Written piece
Threads of Safe Futures
Orishaba Wilbroad Education Support Organisation (OWESO)
Uganda
About this piece
In Rwampara Uganda, 90 VSLA women weave safe circles for 3,600 girls. Through SRHR sessions and peer mentors, girls gain knowledge, avoid early marriage, and stay in school. Each stitch is a connection that holds the community together, thread by thread.
THREADS OF SAFE FUTURES (Engaro z’Eby’omu Misho)
"Inspired by Commonwealth Poet Laureate Selina Tusitala Marsh’s call to explore ‘Thread’, this is how OWESO weaves safety and futures for girls in Rwampara, Uganda."
In Rwampara, Uganda, the thread that holds a girl in school is often another woman’s hand.
At OWESO, we work with 90 Village Savings and Loan Association (VSLA) groups. These are women who meet every week to save small money, but they do more than that. They sit in circles under trees, in church compounds, and in trading centers. They talk about what is happening to their daughters. They talk about periods, pregnancy, violence, and why girls drop out.
From these circles, we have built safe spaces for 3,600 girls aged 10 to 19 in four sub-counties of Mwizi, Ndeija, Rugando, and Bugamba . Every week, girls come together for SRHR sessions led by trained peer mentors. The mentors are not older than 24. They speak the girls’ language. They don’t lecture. They listen. They answer questions that girls are too afraid to ask at home.
The thread works both ways. When a girl learns about her body and her rights, she goes back and talks to her mother. When a mother understands, she stops blaming her daughter and starts protecting her. That is how we have stopped 127 early marriages in the last two years. That is how we keep girls in class during their periods by giving them reusable pads and teaching boys to respect that too.
We call it “weaving” because nothing changes alone. The VSLA women provide the space and trust. The girls bring their stories and courage. The peer mentors bring knowledge and calm. The local leaders bring permission. Each group is a stitch. Alone it looks small. Together it makes a cloth strong enough to catch a girl before she falls.
This is what “Thread” means to us. It is not just cloth. It is connection. It is the link between a grandmother who never went to school and a granddaughter who wants to be a nurse. It is the link between shame and voice. Between silence and safety.
If our thread is chosen for the Commonwealth Quilt, it will carry the names of girls who stayed in school, who said no to violence, who now speak in meetings. It will carry the hands of women who decided their daughters deserve more.
We are not asking for pity. We are showing what happens when community decides to hold each other. One stitch at a time. One girl at a time. One future at a time.