Helping Children Isn't Enough, So We Support the Families That Sustain Them
At CHOCU, we understand that lasting change doesn’t come from helping children alone. Children thrive when their families are stable, resilient, and self-reliant.
That’s why CHOCU supports families through a sequenced pathway, first stabilizing children, then strengthening households, and finally preparing youth for opportunity, while protecting progress during crisis.
CHOCU’s Core Understanding
Children in rural Uganda are born into households that often lack the economic, social, and institutional capacity to sustain education, health, and dignity.
As a result, children experience preventable illness, exclusion from school, and long-term poverty.
CHOCU exists to move families from vulnerability to self-reliance through a sequenced poverty-exit pathway.
We start where the pain is visible, but we design for what must change upstream.
Why a Pathway, Not Just Programs
Poverty doesn’t enter through one door.
Hunger, unsafe water, lack of income, poor health, and limited education often happen at the same time.
That’s why CHOCU doesn’t run isolated projects.
CHOCU runs a poverty-exit pathway, expressed through programs at different stages.
We organize our work around movement through states:
vulnerable → stable → resilient → opportunity-ready
Layer 1: Child Well-Being & Protection
(Entry Layer)
This layer answers one critical question:
Can the child survive, be safe, and show up to school with dignity?
Purpose
Remove immediate barriers to child survival, dignity, and participation, while identifying household vulnerability.
Programs in this layer
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Barefoot-Free Uganda Initiative
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Child Nutrition & Healthy Growth
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Clean Water, Hygiene & Sanitation (WASH)
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Child Protection & Community Inclusion
This is where CHOCU starts, because child suffering is visible, urgent, and unacceptable.
Important:
This layer is about stabilization and diagnosis, not poverty exit.
Our Child Well-Being & Protection programs are the entry gate into CHOCU’s poverty-exit system.
Layer 2: Family Strengthening & Poverty Reduction
This layer answers the next question:
Can the household sustain the child without repeated external aid?
Why this matters
Caregivers often lack stable income pathways, productive assets, and institutional support to sustain their children’s education, health, and dignity.
Without addressing this, child gains collapse.
Programs in this layer
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Young Mothers Support & Parenting Education
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Family Services Referral Network
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Household Economic Strengthening (HES)
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Food Security & Home Gardening
This is where sustainability actually lives.
Everything above it depends on this layer working.
Sustainability emerges when families move from Layer 1 → Layer 2 → Layer 3.
Layer 3: Education, Youth & Opportunity
This layer answers a longer-term question:
Can children and youth convert stability into lasting opportunity?
Purpose
Transform stability into skills, education, leadership, and upward mobility.
Programs in this layer
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Back-to-School Support & Retention
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Literacy, Reading & Learning Corners
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CHOCU Learning Centers (Digital Access & Literacy)
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Youth Skills & Leadership Development
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Future Leaders Education Pathway (BYU-Pathway Track)
This layer cannot work properly if Layer 1 and Layer 2 fail, and that’s okay to say explicitly.
Cross-Cutting: Emergency Relief & Crisis Response
This layer answers one protective question:
What prevents families from falling backward during shocks?
Program
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Emergency Relief & Crisis Response
This is not a pathway stage, but a safety net, protecting progress during illness, displacement, or crisis.
It preserves dignity and prevents families from being reset to zero.
A Crucial Truth About Progression
Not every family will move through every layer.
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Enter Layer 1
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Stabilize at Layer 2
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Never need Layer 3
That is success, not failure.
CHOCU’s system is designed for selective progression, not forced graduation.
How It All Comes Together
CHOCU starts where child suffering is visible, stabilizes the household that sustains the child, strengthens economic capacity, and prepares youth for lasting opportunity, while preventing collapse during crisis.
