Sustainable Livelihoods

Despite national economic progress, poverty remains deeply entrenched, particularly among rural, displaced, and refugee communities. Poverty also hits young women and young people with disabilities harder. At SASCU, we recognize that economic hardship is a major driver of adversities experienced by children and young people.

In line with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which affirms that the family is “the fundamental group of society and the natural environment for the growth and well-being of all its members, and particularly children,” SASCU places family strengthening at the heart of our programs. We support kinship care arrangements and facilitate reintegration to reunite children with their families of origin. Our services are locally contextualized and uphold the rights of all children and young people, regardless of status or background. By helping families, both host and refugee, access essential resources and services, we ensure that their children grow up in safe, nurturing environments that support their physical, emotional, and psychological development.

SASCU’s Family Strengthening model targets outcomes at the child, family, and community levels, fostering long-term self-reliance. Our approach emphasizes entrepreneurship, small-scale enterprises, climate-smart agriculture, and vocational skills tailored to local market needs in both development and humanitarian contexts, including refugee-hosting communities. We provide financial services and entrepreneurship support to vulnerable families, promote agro-entrepreneurship and climate-resilient smallholder farming, offer micro-credit and access to farm inputs, and deliver mentorship and coaching to help families launch and sustain businesses. We also equip parents and caregivers with vocational training and financial literacy, empowering them to build stable livelihoods and prevent unnecessary child-family separation.

To achieve this, we provide pathways for vulnerable youth and women to acquire market-relevant knowledge, skills, and opportunities that lead to decent employment and life-changing opportunities. Our interventions include vocational training, savings groups, business cooperatives, entrepreneurship skills development, apprenticeships, and life skills training. Mentorship, on-the-job placements, job-seeking support, and business start-up assistance form the core of our approach to smoothing the transition from education to working life.

Food security is another key focus. We support sustainable smallholder agriculture, helping families meet their own needs and generate income from surplus produce. Our livelihood programs target both families of resettled children and families at risk of losing children to the streets, ensuring children remain safe while households achieve stability and resilience.