SHARED ACTION AFRICA
Removing Barriers. Building Pathways. Enabling Self-
Reliance for refugee and rural women and girls
Shared Action Africa is a women-led nonprofit that works with refugee and host-community women and
girls in Uganda to build stable livelihoods - by improving reproductive health, creating income pathways,
and supporting women to lead change in their communities.
THE CHALLENGE
In refugee and host communities, women and girls are not facing one challenge. They are navigating a web of barriers that reinforce each other: poor access to reproductive healthcare, unstable income, climate-vulnerable livelihoods, limited decision-making power, and systems that are often under-resourced or difficult to access.
When reproductive health needs go unmet, women struggle to participate consistently in school, training, work, savings groups, and enterprise. When income is unstable, it becomes harder to access care or plan for the future. When women have limited voice, these barriers stay in place.
CORE INSIGHT
What looks like an income problem often starts as a health problem - but lasting self-reliance requires health, opportunity, and agency together.
Shared Action Africa is a women-led nonprofit that works with refugee and host-community women and girls in Uganda to build stable livelihoods by strengthening reproductive health systems, creating income pathways, and supporting women to lead change in their communities.
THE SOLUTION
The Integrated Health First - Livelihoods Model
Shared Action Africa supports refugee and host community women and girls to move beyond aid by connecting three parts of the journey that are too often treated separately:
- Reproductive health and wellbeing - so women can participate consistently.
- Income pathways - so women can save, earn, and build more stable livelihoods.
- Agency and leadership - so women can shape the systems, resources, and decisions that affect their lives.
How the Model Works
Reproductive Health
Enabling participation
Shared Action Africa strengthens government health systems to improve access to sexual and reproductive health services
Economic Opportunity
Two pathways to income
Once barriers to participation begin to reduce, women and girls move into income pathways suited to their age, needs, and circumstances
Agency
Women Leading Change
Women are supported to build confidence, voice, and bargaining power. Through groups, peer networks, and advocacy
IMPROVED LIVELIHOOD AND SELF-RELIANCE
When women and girls are healthy, they can learn, earn and build stable livelihoods
The Founders’ Why
Shared Action Africa began with a simple but powerful realization:
Women were carrying the weight of their families while having the least control over the resources, opportunities, and decisions shaping their lives.
After years of working alongside rural women in Uganda, founders Evelyn Nassuna and Priscilla Nambajjwe set out to change that reality. What began in 2016 as an effort to expand women’s economic opportunities soon grew into something deeper.
As SAA listened to the refugee and host-community women and girls, one truth became impossible to ignore: poverty was not caused by lack of income alone. Poor health, limited agency, stigma, and exclusion were all connected.
That insight became the foundation of SAA’s work today.
iMPACT SNAPSHOT
Women and girls accessed reproductive health services.
Women built stable livelihoods through enterprise development.
Young women completed Learn and Earn and moved into paid community roles.
Health workers were trained to strengthen youth-friendly and reproductive health services.
By strengthening health, expanding economic opportunity, and building women’s agency, we create pathways to sustainable livelihoods and self-reliance
The need by numbers
Refugees live in Uganda
10 Households rely on Biomass for energy
Hectares of Forest Cover lost every year
OUR Latest Blog
Shared Action Africa in Cervical Cancer Fight within Refugee Communities
April 21, 2026
Shared Action Africa Supports Albino Youths in Nakivale Settlement
April 21, 2026
Nuwazima Mamini: Disability Rights and HIV Awareness Empower Her Life
April 21, 2026
Shared Action Africa
Uganda
Plot 88 Bunyonyi Drive,
Kampala
United States:
4500 Natomas Central Dr.
#633
Sacramento, CA
95834
Quick Links
Service Locations
We currently serve Nakivale and Oruchinga Refugee Settlements in Southwestern Uganda.
Our Approach
Shared Action Africa supports refugee and host community women and girls to move beyond aid by connecting three parts of the journey that are too often treated separately - Sexual and reproductive health, economical opportuinty and women's leadership
© 2026 Shared Action Africa
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