St. Bakhita is a private institution founded and owned by the Catholic Archdiocese of Gulu. The founding of this Center was driven by the demand from the community to address the then crucial needs of children affected by wars. Its special focus has been in the needs of girls aged between 14 years and 20 years who had been abducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels and forcefully conscripted into their (LRA’s) ranks as sex slaves, porters and combatants. The goal of the institution is to improve the quality of life of these disadvantaged girls through training in vocational skills in various trades.

The wars did not affect the girls only through abduction but many also lost their parents either to HIV/AIDS or to the rebels and others got pregnant due to constant rape and sexual abuse when in captivity and came back with children they find difficult to live with and maintain. Besides these the social life and setting of the internally displaced persons’ camps (IDPCs) exposed the children to undesirable behaviors such as alcohol abuse, irresponsible sexual behavior, violence, and other substances’ abuse.

The school has an annexed farm for production to help support the school budget as these girls cannot raise enough money to support their training. The farm has so far been involved in crop production but had plans for animal farming and poultry but due to financial problems. The planned animal farming and poultry have not yet taken off due to lack of funding.

By supporting the farm, WIN contribute not only to the education of  children but also support their parents in improving their nutrition and health through improved farming techniques and acquisition of dairy cows.