Improve Learning Outcomes for Ugandan Children

We spent the past month traversing the entire country, training and engaging over 1,700 teachers and school principles in 20 different locations. We have expereineced great cooperation and a warm welcome everywhere we went, especially from local government (district) education officials. In the past, efforts to cooperate with government officials was not easily forthcoming, however, this year, they were all eager to be involved, designate staff to our activities and actively engage in mobilising schools, securing free venues for the training workshops and talking to service providers. This is huge.

In many of these places, like Arua, in West Nile, we had 415 teachers show up for the training, the room we had got for this grew smaller, and we ran out of seats, the teachers who came for the training did not give up or walk away, they stayed and stood in doorways and windows to make sure they catch on what we were sharing. This is unprecedented, given the fact that, apart from a lunchtime meal, we were not paying a transport refund or facilitation fee, a common occurance with NGOs.

These high numbers are evident that word about the impact of our programs in schools has gone out ahead of us and every school principle, teacher or local government official who heard of this program was eager to get involved. We hope that as many as they turn out and get to participate, the impact we are creating will spread further and many more children will be able to be excited about learning and choose to stay in school. 

The efforts to improve learning outcomes are growing stronger, thanks to your continued support. Many teachers and educators are eager to work with us to find a lasting solution to the low literacy and high school drop outs that we face every day.

In the last three months we have also developed a partnership with World Vision, expanding and intergrating our literacy program in all their 650 schools across the country. Our relationship with the Ministry of Education also contiues to grow stronger.

In the next three months, we shall be conducting several reading activities in schools and distributing books as part of our #10MBooksto10MKids campaign to get children to fall in love with books, LEARN to READ so they can self teach. We shall also be involved with several schools supporting them to set up Reading Clubs and organise School based Spelling Bees. In June and July, we shall conduct our district and regional Spelling Bee.

As this effort continues, we still need your help, to close this project and to hit our fundraising target of $40,000. We currently have $500 to go. Any little bit matters. If you want to chip in, feel free to go to http://bit.ly/SUPPORTREADING

2017 was an exciting and high growth year for us, thank you very very much for choosing to walk this journey with us and to support us with your hard earned money. Because of your generosity:

A Ugandan child (Spelling Bee Champion, 2016) won the African Spelling Bee in Johannesburg in December, drawing a lot of attention, interest and media coverage for our work.

A 10-year-old girl, inspired by what we do, decided to donate her books and those from her friends to a rural school in Lira so the kids there can learn to read. She has even committed to saving more money so she can transport the enjuba team to start a reading club and conduct a spelling bee in this school.

Another 11-year-old girl was so grateful after we conducted a reading event in her school, that she ran up to me, and handed me a 1000-shilling note (27 cents). She said “thank you for reading for us and may God bless you.” This simple expression of gratitude speaks volumes, especially knowing how much she could do with this money.

In many ways, it does not get better than this. Yet we know and are fully aware that we have just started to scratch on the surface of what needs to be done, and we have a lot more work to do in the coming months and years.

2017 was also the year we extended our program to one of the country’s remotest and most vulnerable communities – Karamoja, about 750km out of Kampala. We got overwhelming support from the local government there, and now the Karamoja Parliamentary caucus wants us to extend our program in the entire region.

We launched into publishing, producing our first child written book that was used for spelling bee preparations and we also partnered with an author, and we now have 8 children’s book titles on the market. This new adventure into publishing gets to provide the much needed beautifully illustrated and locally relevant books for children across the country. It also completes our theory of change cycle, crystallising our focus on literacy.

The Ugandan Ministry of Education also, in recognition for our work is moving to include our entire program on the National Schools calendar.

As we start 2018, we are energised to go further and continue to make a difference in the lives of children. We hope to open a children’s reading space as well as work with you to take 10 million books to 10 million kids across the country.

Join us in this effort by buying a book for a child. A gift of $15 will get a book to 5 children, and because they share, the impact will even be greater. You can donate to this campaign here.

I also appeal to you to share this with your family and friends, and to consider making a recurring donation to this work.

Thank you again for your support.

Links:

• http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/-pupil-Africa-juniorspelling-bee-contest-Promise-Kitara/688334-4232256-7ngmf5z/index.html
• website