Young people’s experiences of informal kinship care in Luwero, Uganda

There is strong evidence that outside parental care, informal kinship care is the most practiced, sustainable and affordable form of childcare in SSA (sub-Saharan Africa). As a longstanding cultural tradition, informal kinship care embraces childcare as the responsibility of all extended family members, and often the wider community. However, over the past decades, informal kinship care has become gradually strained by political, economic and social conditions, such as: legacies of colonialism, increasing levels of poverty and inequality, instability, or infectious diseases. Drawing on qualitative biographical data from the Contexts of Violence in Adolescence Cohort Study (CoVAC) (2018–2022), we examine and showcase how practices of informal kinship care are perceived and experienced by young people. Doing so, we pay attention to the political, economic and social environment affecting informal kinship care in Uganda. Young people’s accounts point to four main features of their experiences of informal kinship care, that relate to: 1) mitigating poverty; 2) ensuring continuation of schooling and/or income generation; 3) generating and navigating family disputes and ruptures; 4) posing and moderating threats to safety and security of children. In analysing young people’s narratives, we critically reflect on implications for research and practice to support informal childcare. We argue that informal kinship care remains a vital cultural asset and an important alternative to forms of residential or institutional care in Uganda. This has implications for health, social protection, education programming and policy for children. Culturally sensitive and context-specific approaches, informed by the perspectives and lived experiences of young people, are needed to properly support children and young people in informal kinship care.