Global Batwa Outreach

Global Batwa Outreach (GBO) is dedicated to revitalizing the marginalized and impoverished Batwa, a pygmy ethnic group indigenous to central Africa. In 1991, the Batwa were driven from their centuries-old homeland in the Bwindi and Echuya forests of Uganda when those areas were converted to national parks and preserves for a threatened gorilla population. This expulsion devastated the Batwa, who are now among the poorest people in Uganda. They are largely landless and homeless squatters, living at the mercy of a community that shuns them because of their pygmy ancestry. Many have been reduced to begging, and are diseased, illiterate and stigmatized. Infant mortality is high; life expectancy is just 28 years.

GBO was established in 2008 to address the problems facing the Batwa and to help them to become self-sufficient and thrive. Projects for bee-keeping, livestock-rearing, and small-plot gardening have helped the Batwa taste economic empowerment. With help from outside organizations, GBO began a tuition-free primary school for 210 students and established an urgent-needs community health center, the Good Grace Medical Center.

GBO now hopes to reduce maternal, fetal, and childhood mortality by establishing a birthing ward at Good Grace, where even the poorest women will be able to access high-quality maternal health care. The ward’s staff will provide prenatal, delivery, and postnatal care as well as safe family planning instruction.