The women who sat around the couple were described as "Soul Sisters," with the role of counseling women or offering them shelter and clothing when they are kicked out of their homes.

Men who are "bleeding internally" — a euphemism for women-on-men violence — are also encouraged to seek support, Isimbwa said: "Any form of violence, we should not tolerate it."

Domestic violence is a global curse. World Health Organization figures from 2021 show that one in three women worldwide has been subjected to some form of it. In Uganda, a 2020 survey by U.N.-backed local authorities found that 95% of women and girls had experienced physical or sexual violence, or both, after turning 15.

Isimbwa said he has been threatened by some locals for trying to empower women. But Ourganda aims to take its work to more villages and "create rapport" with local officials who make or break efforts to prosecute offenders, he said.

"We have created more awareness in communities. Now people tend to know what they are supposed to do. They try their level best to make sure that they don't violate other people's rights," he said.

Many in Bundibugyo who spoke to The Associated Press said domestic violence is often sparked by financial disputes and disagreements over sex — quarrels that can be intensified by alcoholism and illiteracy.

Most cases are never prosecuted. Out of 2,194 cases of teenage pregnancy in 2023 — a broad category that encompasses some forms of domestic violence — only 54 were reported to the police in Bundibugyo, said Pamela Grace Adong, the district's probation and social welfare officer. Bundibugyo is home to around 20,000 people.

"It is now going up," she said of gender-based violence. "For example, last year we got around 575 cases … But this year – this is now June – we have around 300."

Ourganda's mediation work helps to police communities, she said.

In the town of Sara-Kihombya, a collection of mud houses across from the Seventh-day Adventist church run by Ourganda, many men congregate in bars in the morning and stay the whole day.

Domestic violence is said to rise between October and February, peak season for harvesting the cocoa plants dotting the volcanic soil. Some couples fight over how to share the earnings, many residents said.

If a man returns home from selling cocoa and the woman asks for some money, "that is war," said Linda Kabugho, a kindergarten teacher who said that until recently she was repeatedly attacked by her husband.

The 23-year-old Kabugho, who dropped out of secondary school when she became pregnant in 2022, said she would fight with her husband when he came home feeling miserable over his soccer betting losses. "He brings all the anger on me," she said. "We fight, we fight, we fight."

Last year she reached out to local officials who introduced her to Ourganda. The couple were counseled by a group of Soul Sisters, and she is now one of them. The man was warned he risked going to jail if he beat his wife again.

Kabugho said her husband had not beaten her in many months, and she thinks of him as a responsible man.

"A least now I can sleep. I can eat very well," she said. "We are somehow safe, and I am somehow safe."