Top Mothers Initiative (TOMI) is a women organization in Uganda. The organization was established in 2019 and registered with the National Bureau for Non-Governmental Organizations under the Non-Governmental Organizations Act, 2016 and the registration number is 3364. The organization has the legal mandate to carry out all activities in line with the provisions of its constitution.
What gave birth to this organization was a nasty incident involving a single mother who was gang raped by a group of criminals and the mother was rescued by the directors to this organization in February 2019. The single mother was working with an eating place in Kisenyi, a Kampala suburb and it was her routine to report to job very early in the morning to prepare for customers who always demanded for food starting at around 6:30am. It was necessary therefore, that the single mother of 2 children, a girl of about three and a half years, whom she carried at her back and a boy, about 5 years who she held by the hand and walked from Namungona, also a Kampala suburb located about eight kilometers from her place of work; sets off for the journey to work early enough at around 4:30am. This fateful day, the single mother bumped into a gang of criminals as she took a short cut to her place of work, who first demanded for money from her and later ordered her to undress and she was raped before her children. The rescue comes in after she had taken a share of them and others were on the wait for their turn.
Following this experience, and coupled with a lot of other experiences of bad treatment of such mothers in different communities, for example molestation of those working in offices as cleaners, failure to access certain opportunities for not positively responding to sexual advances from men, belittling them in communities, framing them with all sorts of negative statements; which makes them so low, loose hope and self esteem. This in turn exposes such women to grave risks in a bid to make their ends meet. They are synonymous with such things like, sex for money, street begging, hard labor, and their children miss out on many opportunities in terms of education and health. The directors therefore, took a resolve to form an organization to mobilize communities on the plight of single mothers.
The organization conducts activities that are aimed at ensuring improved welfare for the lives of single mother and her family members.
Top Mothers initiative comes up with programs that are designed to provide solutions to the challenges faced by single motherhood, with emphasis on empowerment, to be able to live a decent and meaningful life while supporting their families and children to turn into responsible adults and educated.
