With very systematic interventions at micro (sub county), meso (district) and macro (national) levels, the Youth Ignite Change Project empowers extremely vulnerable and marginalized adolescent’s women and youth with the necessary tools to become self-sustaining, reduce vulnerabilities, as well as take charge of their lives and those of their families. Through the project, IFRAD is equipping women and youth with entrepreneurship and life skills with the goal to; i) increase women and youth economic empowerment, as well as ii) achieving greater gender equality.

IFRAD is investing in place based skills training as opposed to mobile community trainings. Since 2020, IFRAD has supported the set-up of community based skills training and innovation center (STICs) in Arua, Nebbi and Gulu districts. Place Based STICs are community training centers that offer year-round trainings to young women and youth in cohorts. They are equipped hubs for building capacities of women and youth in various skills such as; entrepreneurship, agribusiness, vocational and other life skills. All participants enrolled at the STIC access business mentoring as well as Sexual Reproductive Health information and services. Training courses offered include; tailoring and design, cereal micro-processing, liquid soap making, sanitizer making, crafts making, conservation gardening, energy saving cooking technologies e.g. stoves and briquettes among other offerings.

IFRAD is integrating AI technology with community knowledge to fix critical gaps in health supply chains across Northern Uganda, where medication waste costs the country over $550,000 annually. This FCDO/Elrha funded project combines predictive analytics with input from local health workers who train and validate the AI models based on their ground-level observations. We are testing tools that forecast demand patterns using disease trends, weather data, and local health patterns across four districts in Northern and South Western Uganda. Our platform connects district health teams, pharmaceutical suppliers, and community health workers in real-time, reducing emergency shortages and waste from over-ordering. Health officers learn to interpret AI forecasts, adjust orders based on local conditions, and track outcomes without needing technical expertise. Early data shows promise in cutting waste while improving medicine availability. This sits at the intersection of IFRAD’s private sector development approach and humanitarian innovation, proving that AI can strengthen health systems when it’s grounded in local knowledge and designed with end-users from the start.