Unsettled Youth: Examining the Life Experiences of Resettled Youth Raised Under Institutional Care in Uganda

This study is purposely looking at issues institutionalization and experiences of resettled youth resulting from the social and economic challenges that affects them in independent living, tackling how they are negotiating and overcoming them. Basing on the fact that there is a high mushrooming rate of care institutions in Uganda, the reproduction of misery life among youth resettled from care institutions has become inevitable. This study also shows how effects of institutionalization begins affecting children while still on care and later magnifies when they exit and live on their own, limiting the existing social capital which they give a justification for admitting children in these institutions. The study also nuances the term used by the care institution, ‘resettled’ therefore arguing from the findings that the youth were unsettled due to the lacking of social support networks, which came out as the main challenge for the youths in independent living. Since this challenge and others were rooted into their being institutionalized, the study therefore suggests de institutionalizing and embrace alternative care so that that the cycle of these challenges can be broken.