BACKGROUND OF ORGANIZATION
Pader Orphans Caring Project which is known as (POCP) is local non-profit making organization which is registered with Pader District local government here in Uganda. POCP was started by Akena Richard who was a former child soldier It is found in Acholibur sub-county, Pader district bordering Kitgum District from the south in Northern Uganda.
Pader orphans caring project is committed to restoring Hope , Healing and Rehabilitation into the lives of former child soldiers, street kids, disability, elders and orphaned by the AIDS epidemic and the brutal LRA war.
Our desire is to see a region rise up again on the foundations of hope and love rather than remain oppressed by fear and destruction. <<, More >>For the last 21 years, a vast part of Northern Uganda in particularly the Acholi Community who inhabited, had experience one of African?s most horrified conflicts in the history. The civil war between the rebel of Lord Resistance Army (LRA) and the Government of Uganda which mostly used children as militiamen to fight during the war. These children are illiterate, grown up in a world of war and violence and obscure intentions remain the children as they are seen as soft target. They normally live a very sad miserable life with a day to day death and destructions that the communities have lived with for these years. Burnt down schools, hospital and homes, destroyed business and ambushed vehicles, land mines victims and machetes hacked bodies, crowded Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps and made shifts schools are the surprising effect of the past civil war in Northern Uganda.
Pader Orphans Caring Project is a registered not for profit Community Based Organization working directly with beneficiaries in Acholibur, Pader - Northern Uganda. it was set up as a response to rescue the traumatized Children, Orphans, Needy, Formerly abducted child soldiers, Elderly, Youths and HIV/AIDS affected families who were affected by insurgency and the growing need for sustainable recovery of the area after two decade conflict, the need to restore Hope and Transforming lives in northern Uganda and the need to move away from short term to long term locally driver solution.
Gender integrations as cross-cutting elements are common to all of POCP?s work. In so doing, POCP works towards the empowerment of the most affected and infected individuals to his/herself challenge the inequalities, right abuses, exclusion and poverty.
Institutionally POCP has gone through a transformation process to strengthen community individual ownership and positioning the group for sustainable impact toward vulnerable people?s, hope, rights and responsibilities. POCP transformed itself from a village group gathering for children?s future, to a community led Organization. Since 2008, POCP has an agreement with the District Local Government and Pader Non-Governmental Organization Forum with a split secretariat between Acholibur and Latanya sub-county. The 2011 assembly confirmed POCP?s community identity and approved a new governance module that is being implemented incrementally. In 2009 and 2010 several village parents? group gathering members withdrew from legal membership, but remain committed brothers and sisters as supporters of the organization.