About Us

YEI is a youth-led community development initiative which was founded in July 2004 by youth volunteers in Kasese district, western Uganda.  The YEI founders were concerned about the lack of effective information and services related to HIV/AIDS in their community.  Many people were at the time dying of what was then called 'a mysterious disease' which was often blamed on witchcraft.

The realization of the true outlook of the disease made it clear to the founders that several people were dying of AIDS because of lack of information about the disease and available treatment options. This motivated them to start YEI with the intention of sensitizing the community about the scourge, and extending prevention and care services to those who need them most.
To date, YEI has grown into one of the major actors in the field of community-based HIV/AIDS prevention and care services. The organization’s services have increased to cover vocational skills trainings, human rights education and child protection, livelihoods improvement and community capacity building.

Management

YEI is governed by a seven-member board of directors which includes representatives of people living with HIV, youths and the local community leadership.  The program implementation team is led by the Programme Director, who is assisted by; the Volunteers Coordinator, the M&E Officer, the Project Accountant and specialized Program Officers.  The project activities are exclusively planned and implemented by community-based volunteers, who also form the membership of the organization.  In addition to the local program team and community-based volunteers, YEI also gets foreign volunteers from volunteer-sourcing partners outside Uganda.  Most of our foreign volunteers come from the US, Canada, South Africa, Asia, and Europe.

Locations

YEI implements activities in Kasese district, western Uganda, and parts of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).  Kasese is a multi-ethnic district in western Uganda on the border with the DRC. Like much of Uganda, Kasese district has been strongly hit by the HIV/AIDS scourge.  However, the infection rates in Kasese are more than double the national average (16% in Kasese compared to the Uganda national average of 6.4%; Uganda AIDS Commission official statistics, 2010).

The high infection rates in Kasese are attributed to the ever-increasing number of sex workers in the district as a result of cross-border activities, poverty and high rates of ignorance.
Therefore, YEI serves an evidently needy population!