Our Impact
We reach over 600,000 children and their caregivers annually across six countries in sub-Saharan Africa. We work with more than 90 local organizations, clinics, and local and national governments in Eswatini, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe.
Who We Are
We work to improve the lives of children and caregivers made vulnerable by HIV and poverty.
Our Approach
We work with governments and local organizations to provide the critical services that children need to grow and thrive.
Better Outcomes for Children and Youth in Eastern and Northern Uganda
The Better Outcomes for Children and Youth in Eastern and Northern Uganda project provides critical HIV and social protection services to 15,000 families and 90,000 children across 20 districts in eastern and northern Uganda.
DREAMS Initiative: Zimbabwe
DREAMS Initiative provides economic resilience and opportunities for girls, layered with HIV prevention, sexual reproductive health, gender-based violence, and life skills.
HIV Prevention Life Skills Education in Secondary Schools (LSE)
The Eswatini LSE Program delivers a national, HIV-focused Life Skills Education (LSE) Curriculum in all secondary schools throughout the country, reaching over 100,000 students annually with critical HIV and life skills education.
Bantwana’s Year in Review – 2018
You could say 2018 was a successful one. Last year, we coordinated services for over 300,000 children and their families through 21 programs in Eswatini, Malawi, Mozambique, Uganda, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. Read more to learn about how our layered programming reaches so many families.
Bantwana wins innovation grant to provide protective assets and retain girls in school through mobile technology
Bantwana is excited to announce a new award from OSISA’s Transformative and Innovative Education portfolio. Go Girls Connect! is a groundbreaking program leveraging mobile-based technology to build digital competency and empower girls with critical life skills, protective assets and resources, and enable them to advocate for their human rights and navigate challenging gender norms. The program will create an evidence base for a unique model that can be easily scaled. It is poised to innovatively address the digital gender divide while empowering girls’ to navigate entrenched gender norms, advocate for their rights, stay in school, and access needed GBV services. Bantwana is pleased to partner with Cell-Ed to develop and deliver this promising program.
Bantwana’s Early Warning System Identifies Adolescents at Risk of Dropping Out
Across sub-Saharan Africa, adolescent girls and young women are among the most vulnerable: they are at the front lines of the HIV epidemic, suffer disproportionately from sexual violence and harmful gender norms, and are far more likely to drop out of school than their male peers. Across Africa, 49 million girls are out of primary and secondary school. In Zimbabwe, approximately 22,000 girls drop out of school each year due to pregnancy.
What if we had the power to help break this cycle of extreme vulnerability? In Eswatini and Zimbabwe, with funding from the DREAMS Innovation Challenge, we developed Early Warning Systems (EWS) that empower schools to identify adolescent girls before they drop out, and provide the necessary supports to keep them in school.