In order to make a contribution to fighting poverty, OCODE implements the following interventions;
(i) Education Program which promotes access to quality and equitable Early Childhood Care Education (ECCE) whose physical environments are in dreadful situations. The main activities which were aimed to improve school readiness and literacy and numeracy skills for early grades include improvement of school infrastructures, provision of learning and teaching materials and capacity building to teachers, heads of schools, ward education officers, schools quality assurers and other school actors including School Management Committees and parents. The program also focuses on promoting inclusive education for marginalized children.
(ii) Community Livelihood Program which has two projects; one is the Bonga project which empowers out-of-school adolescent girls (the majority) and boys to enable them to develop employability skills for self-employment through running IGA and being absorbed in employment sectors to raise income to support their living. The second component is the Community Managed Saving Groups (CMSGs) project where marginalized social groups, mostly women and youth, are mobilized into groups to pull together their resources and later lend to each other to run again IGA. The goal is to improve family income to better support the children and the entire family.
(iii) The Youth Empowerment Program is another program that provides a platform for youth to meet leaders and policymakers to discuss and share information that helps to address some of the youth’s challenges. Under the program, OCODE also runs the Act Now Exchange Program in partnership with the Stromme Foundation. The program provides youth with an opportunity to learn and improve leadership skills. Youth from the global south (including Tanzania) get a chance to live, give and learn in Norway (North) for 10 months while Norwegian youth come to the South to do the same for 6 months. Participants from both sides work as volunteers in the host organizations. Act now program provides an opportunity for a volunteer to share life experience, knowledge and skills with other youth and other organization activities in the field through that volunteers’ self-esteem becomes strong when practising leadership roles in the community.
In order to achieve the intended goals, OCODE also works to strengthen the civil society and public sector in the operation area (Ubungo Municipality) to have collective voices and impactful advocacy. Its’ intended outcomes include empowering individuals and communities to claim rights and promote partnerships and accountability of duty bearers.