AVSI maintains a unique connection with Uganda, one of the countries most closely tied to our origins. In 1984, we began operations in the northern part of the country, providing humanitarian aid to support those affected by the civil war. Today, AVSI is present throughout the country, focusing on education, economic empowerment and livelihoods, health, disability, HIV and AIDS, nutrition, child protection, mental health and well-being, energy, humanitarian emergencies, sanitation and hygiene. 

Through public-private partnerships, AVSI engages with private sector players, government entities and communities to build the capacity of children, youth and households across Uganda through a comprehensive family-centered approach. 

Since 1986, AVSI has remained committed to safeguarding the protection, health, education, shelter, livelihoods, and overall living conditions of refugees and host communities to help them become protagonists, even in their circumstances. 

AVSI's established and coordinated emergency response mechanisms enhance our interventions to address unforeseen humanitarian crises. The individualized emergency planning and the readiness of trained personnel for immediate deployment to the field exemplify a significant competency possessed by AVSI in managing emergencies

AVSI participated in humanitarian and emergency efforts in northern Uganda during the twenty-year armed conflict. In the late 1980s, AVSI assisted Achol-pii refugees and intervened in the Kyangwali Refugee Settlement in Hoima District during the 1990s. AVSI maintains an active Memorandum of Understanding with the Office of the Prime Minister, allowing engagement within the settlements. 

AVSI staff work daily in nine of the 13 active refugee settlements: Palabek (Lamwo District), Rhino (Arua District), Kyangwali (Kikuube District), Rwamwanja (Kamwenge District), Nakivale (Isingiro District), Kyaka II (Kyegegwa District), Imvepi (Terego District), and Rhino Omugo (Madi-Okollo District)

At the center of every intervention is the person and their value, which for AVSI translates into always focusing on their actual questions and needs, taking into consideration the relationships in which the person is embedded.

It is from this series of attentions that the so-called Graduation Approach was born: each beneficiary is accompanied to "graduate" to escape the situation of non-self-sufficiency and exposure to poverty in order to become autonomous. The participants' exit from the project signifies their new beginning. This is also why the conclusion of projects based on the Graduation Approach is a moment of celebration: thousands of families have achieved their independence at different times and no longer require the "protection" of the project. The Graduation Approach does not provide generic answers but offers tailored solutions through an evidence-based process involving staff and partners. If AVSI achieves the expected results, it is because it operates through networks with donors, Ugandan ministries, organizations, research institutes, and local agencies and institutions. Networking and building connections are crucial for the model's success, which has consistently encouraged people to unite around practical needs (such as saving money) while promoting more active participation in the community. To provide a concrete picture: Graduating to Resilience was an initiative implemented in the Kamwenge district and supported by USAID, involving over 13,000 families of Congolese refugees and vulnerable Ugandans. Over seven years, 80 percent of beneficiaries have emerged from extreme poverty, participants have gained financial skills, and cumulative savings reached US$1.8 million. Among the positive effects: 96% of the children had enough food, and 99% of the families maintained a balanced diet.

AVSI has been implementing energy access projects in Uganda since 2014. These initiatives operate at various levels, including the Productive Use of Energy and Rural Electrification. The goal is to help communities utilize electricity for their overall development, enhance income-generating activities, improve livelihoods, education, health, and gender equity, and address climate change concerns. All interventions aim to raise awareness and understanding of energy-related issues, enabling community participation and leading to informed choices about energy consumption and production conservation.

To ensure that electrified communities effectively utilize electricity for their businesses, AVSI has collaborated closely with mini-grid developers. Business skills training, coaching, and enhanced access to energy-efficient appliances are some of the ways through which the Productive Use of Energy is promoted among entrepreneurs. Blended financial solutions, including demand-side subsidies, are encouraged so that last-mile communities can benefit from them. These partnerships with developers, distributors, and financial institutions are central to such interventions..

Off-grid solutions have also been promoted by AVSI using the Market Systems Development approach where private sector companies provide technical support to energy companies operating in difficult-to-reach markets such as humanitarian settings. Market Systems Development offers technical assistance while mitigating risks for private sector actors by building capacity for last-mile sales agents. It identifies distributors within remote communities who engage over 800 last-mile agent resellers, thereby increasing community purchasing power.

AVSI has been engaged in agriculture since 1984. It collaborated with government departments to offer technical assistance to raise the level of mechanization and the quality of extension services provided to farmer communities. Later, this support developed into overall strategic support for systemic blocks of the agri-food sector, among other things, which facilitated the engagement of target beneficiaries in agribusiness and nutrition-sensitive farming through key value chains.

This has been accomplished with financial support from institutional and private donors, enabling AVSI to implement various interventions in the country's agricultural sector. This is achieved through partnerships with multiple stakeholders, employing best programming practices, and field-testing new models and innovations in critical areas that shape the future of the agri-food system. These include but are not limited to;

Additionally, AVSI has been a pioneer in waste management based on circular economy principles, converting organic waste into organic fertilizers and animal feed using black soldier fly technology. As a result, an improved enabling environment has been created, characterized by enhanced access for smallholder farmers to extension services, inputs, information, and profitable markets for their produce. This ultimately leads to their income growth, resulting in a general socioeconomic transformation in areas where food security and agricultural livelihood projects are implemented. Positive outcomes include improved access to nutritious foods, increased agricultural job creation, and better environmental sustainability conservation.

AVSI has been implementing education programs in Uganda since 1984, starting with educational interactions with small groups of people who gathered on the verandas of the AVSI office in the evenings, seeking safety from the Lord's Resistance Army rebels in Kitgum and Agago Districts during two decades of insurgency. Social workers focused on helping internally displaced persons lead healthy and meaningful lives. Topics covered by social workers included hygiene, health, safety, and relationship building, mainly how to live peacefully together. 

With the launch of the Distance Support Program in 1993, AVSI began supporting formal education for children. The program has since expanded to all regions of the country, collaborating with local partners such as Meeting Point Kitgum, Meeting Point Hoima, and Meeting Point International. Additional partners include the Salesians of Donbosco Bombo, Evangelizing Sisters of Mary (Jinja), Luigi Giussani primary and secondary schools, COWA Centenary Vocational Training School Nsambya, COWA Vocational Training Center, and the Franciscan Sisters (Luka Nakaseke).

Fostering the participation of everyone - beneficiaries, operators, partners, donors, and the private sector - in project implementation is one of the guiding principles of AVSI's method. In Uganda, the stories of the Luigi Giussani Primary School and the Luigi Giussani Secondary School exemplify this approach. 

Today, more than a thousand children and young people attend these two outstanding schools in Kampala's poorest slums, Kireka, because, in 2005, vulnerable women chose to provide their children with a quality education. 

Many of these women are HIV-positive and survivors of the atrocities from the war in the north. They sought for their children a place where they would feel valued and learn to recognize their worth, as they had experienced through Rose Busingye, the founder of Meeting Point International, a Ugandan partner organization of AVSI. 

AVSI has supported these mothers' aspirations by mobilizing its network of supporters in Italy to finance this initiative, including selling over 48,000 necklaces made by these women. 

At the Luigi Giussani schools, children and young people embark on a journey where education is seen as guiding individuals to discover the value of self and other's world.

Today, many students at the two institutes are part of the Distance Support program. This program enables a response to the identified needs through collaboration with various social actors, including schools, religious organizations, and local partners such as Meeting Point International.

AVSI's current educational interventions extend well beyond the pre-primary school level, including primary and secondary schooling. AVSI has participated in the Education in Emergencies working group task teams, contributing to and directly implementing various new non-formal education programs such as the four Accelerated Education Centers in Palabek and Kyangwali Refugee Settlements, along with 14 others in Hoima, Masindi, and Kyenjojo Districts. These initiatives aim to assist over-aged children who have dropped out of school in returning to education and obtaining a National Primary Leaving Examination Certificate. For example, the AVSI Foundation is also implementing Language Bridging under the Education Cannot Wait initiative for recent arrivals in Kyangwali, targeting Congolese refugee children aged 10 to 18 years who wish to enroll in school but whose English speaking and writing proficiency is below the level required for instruction in Uganda schools

In its support of education in emergencies, AVSI addresses overcrowded classrooms by implementing a double-shift school system. For example, AVSI has conducted surveys that led us to support over 200 child mothers in returning to school; it provides dignity kits to over 5,000 girls of menstrual age annually; distributes educational materials to over 15,000 learners each year within the Palabek/Kyangwali Settlement areas, and implements child safeguarding and protection strategies to ensure vulnerable refugee children are safe. We aim to enhance individual self-awareness, helping people discover their value and fostering a sense of belonging. This is why we collaborate with learners, school leadership teams, parents, and the broader community for holistic education support.

AVSI has been active in Uganda's health sector since 1984, initially starting in the Northern Uganda region and later expanding to other sub-regions. The projects are based on integrated programming and District Health System Strengthening, collaborating with local partners, and developing multisectoral initiatives that support both development and humanitarian assistance, child protection, and psychosocial support. 

To date, AVSI is a committed member of national and sub-national coordination mechanisms, including the Maternal Perinatal Death Surveillance and Response (MPDSR), Ministry of Health working groups (such as Maternal Newborn Health, HIV/Adolescent, Nutrition), Local Maternity and Newborn Systems, Joint Regional Review Missions, and district health efforts teams.

This established engagement is through different on-going programmes among others: