Journey through impact: A glimpse into Uganda with School for Life!

Two members of our School for Life team recently embarked on a journey to Uganda, accompanied by seven supporters. Their mission? To witness firsthand the transformative power of education and community development initiatives in Uganda.

Here's a snapshot of their eye-opening experience.

Exploring the impact

During their seven-day excursion, they really got into Ugandan life, talking with students and seeing our projects in action. They went everywhere, from lively classrooms to warm community gatherings, feeling grateful for the support from people like you that makes this all possible.

Celebrating progress

They saw great changes from the completion of a new dining hall for students to the remarkable artworks decorating the school walls. It was a happy occasion as they celebrated the impact of our supporters' contributions.

Meeting inspirational individuals

Their journey introduced them to remarkable individuals like Collins, a young student persevering through adversity, and Margaret, a guardian angel caring for her grandchildren. Their stories serve as powerful reminders of the resilience and strength within the Ugandan community.

Their journey through Uganda was a testament to how much we can do when we work together. As they reflect on their experiences, they're reminded of the incredible potential within every child and the transformative power of education. 

A huge thank you for your constant help in giving children in Uganda a brighter future. With your continued support, we're changing lives, one at a time.

If you are interested in visiting Uganda and seeing your impact first hand please join us on one of our Travel4Good trips or email hello@schoolforlife.org.au to organise a day trip.

“Where to begin... A much wished for and anticipated visit. What has been achieved by SFL thus far and what they have planned for the future, astounds me.

I have nothing but admiration and respect for how SFL managed the purchasing of land, the building of the schools, the wonderful teachers and support staff they employ and the end goal, educating the kids! It is beyond belief.

My lived experience whilst grounding and humbling, was also joyous. These kids have the opportunity of an education in a safe environment, where they are nourished in both body, mind and spirit.” - Lucy

HOPE AND RESILIENCE SHINE AT GLOBAL DOCUMENTARY LAUNCH ‘SEEDS’

It was a full house at the global premiere of SEEDS, Planting Hope Through Education on November 14 as the documentary took viewers on the inspirational journey of three remarkable women determined to bring about change in Uganda.

The ground-breaking documentary, directed by Cameron D'Arcy follows School for Life Founder Annabelle Chauncy OAM, and Janepher Nansubuga and Brenda Namulinda on their mission to provide the most vulnerable children in Uganda with a quality education. 

Through their stories, the film captures their commitment in the face of immense adversity to demonstrate that real change is possible through the transformative power of education.  The documentary also features many of the students who share their own dreams and ambitions for the future.

The moving story of hope and resilience meant there was not a dry eye in the house. 

"After personally witnessing the exceptional work of School for Life Foundation in Uganda, I felt a deep compulsion to share this vital narrative,” Cameron said. 

“My aim was to offer viewers an unfiltered glimpse into the daily realities, challenges, and unwavering spirit of the Ugandans. The story stands as a testament to the profound belief that one individual's passion and dedication can truly reshape the world.”

The event, generously hosted by TV Presenter and Journalist Edwina Barthomolew was attended by School for Life Board members, supporters, partners, ambassadors, staff and volunteers.

Josh Miller from the Ted Dunn Foundation said, “I truly recommend watching this documentary, it has something in it for everyone. It takes us on a journey, and I personally learnt a lot about the challenges, especially over recent years faced by Uganda and School for Life.” 

At the conclusion of the screening, there was an open Q&A session with fantastic questions from audience members young and old keen to learn more about day-to-day school life in Uagnda and the range of initiatives to support every student to reach their potential.

Annabelle said she’d always been happier on the other side of the camera and was humbled by the response to the documentary.

“Cameron has done an incredible job capturing the heart and heroes of this story - the students, staff and team on the ground in Uganda,” she said.

“We believe in the transformative impact of education and through this documentary, the audience gets to see this first-hand. I can’t thank everyone enough who has been involved in this project helping to share our vision to bring about lasting change through education.”

Greg Newling from Ku-ring-gai Rotary who have supported School for Life for over 10 years encourages others to see this “amazing story.”   

“It talks about the progress that’s been made and the comparison between what happens to the children Uganda who don’t have School for Life and the amazing work that’s done by the organisation.”

If you weren’t able to attend the launch event, SEEDS is now available for private screenings. 

Find out more about hosting your own screening here.

School for Life Board Member Micheal Muelheim said: “I’d encourage everyone to see this documentary, to share it and be grateful that you can be part of something that’s such a big movement and something that’s bigger than yourself.”

15 Years of School for Life

15 years of school for life

Reflections from ceo and founding director annabelle chauncy oam

School for Life was born out of pure passion, determination, a desire to make a difference and a big dose of naivety. Dave Everett and I formally started it together in 2008, aged 22, having visited Kenya and Uganda and experiencing firsthand the extreme poverty in which children and their families were living, particularly in rural areas, but also the incredible determination and ambition they had to break themselves free from the circumstances they were born into. The lotto of life is exactly that - pure chance - and where you are born can have such an impact on the life and opportunities you will have. 

Our biggest takeaway from that trip was that local leaders and communities must be empowered to help themselves for any change to be truly long lasting and sustainable. We believed that every single child who has the chance to go to school will have the chance to change the course of their life and the future of their communities.  So we set out to create just that. A school to change the futures of some children who by circumstances of birth would never have access. 

Never in my wildest dreams did I envisage that School for Life would become what it is today, fifteen years on. We are providing quality education to 2500 students across 5 schools, clean water, health care, nutritious meals, skilling programs and providing employment to more than 150 staff globally. The ripple effect is huge. Each person influenced by School for Life goes on to change the course of their family and community’s futures. 

What a wild ride it has been - beautiful highs, tragic lows, amazing successes and some big failures as well as everything in between. But in everything we do, we reflect, learn, refine, enhance, improve, make mistakes and keep on repeating that process over and over again. Our journey is one of iteration and relentless belief in our higher vision of educating poverty out of existence.

It’s hard to even begin to put 15 years into words so I thought I would highlight 15 magical moments that stand out in my memory.

15 magical moments

1. 12 December 2008, School for Life was born.

After a mountain of paperwork was drafted and submitted to the ATO, ASIC, the ACNC and we had our charitable licenses to fundraise approved, we were officially a legal entity and ready to raise funds! Little did we know, registering a charity was going to be the easy bit, getting it up and running would be a much bigger challenge.

2. Facing the reality of rejection and pitching to Rotary Australia World Community Service (RAWCS) for their support

As a founder, you quickly get used to navigating setbacks and obstacles. There would be no greater one than getting the funding we needed to start School for Life. 

After approaching anyone who would listen to ask for advice, introductions or funding support, with an idea on a piece of paper and 3D model of a school, the number of people who told us ‘come back to us after you finish your University degrees’, ‘come back to philanthropy later in life when you have more experience’ and ‘you’re crazy, you’ll never be able to do something like this’ was overwhelming and we really weren’t sure how we were going to get the funding we needed to transform our idea  into a reality. We knew we needed to partner with a cornerstone organisation and to get tax deductibility to be able to guarantee donors a receipt in return for their donation. Rotary was the perfect partner.

Dave and I made our way through several tiers of Rotary Clubs, convincing a local Club to champion us, followed by the District and we were then onto the RAWCS Board to get their approval to auspice School for Life under the Rotary umbrella and give us access to tax deductibility. We went in nervously to pitch to their Board of 7 Directors, and sat outside for 10 long minutes as they deliberated whether they were willing to take a risk on these two passionate young people who had a lot of energy and very limited lived experience setting up or running a non-profit organisation. When we returned to the room, we were told that the Board had voted: 3 Directors had rejected our application labeling it too risky and 4 had approved it, taking a chance on us, on the proviso that one of their Directors sat on our Board to oversee the partnership. We were thrilled. Rotary gave us credibility, and a huge amount of support that helped us to get School for Life off the ground nationwide. 

3. The first cheque we ever received from a major donor

I don’t think as a founder you’ll ever forget the first person who believed in you and your vision. It still remains imprinted on my mind and it’s true to say that people will always remember how you made them feel.  

I’d been invited to have lunch with a prospective donor in Darling Harbour. I’d read up a lot about her and knew she was interested in supporting education overseas and when I arrived she was there with some students she had been supporting from Papua New Guinea. Bright eyed and bushy tailed, I went into the meeting and told her all about the school we wanted to build, showed her the architect concept designs and told her about our vision to provide quality education to children living in rural areas and developing communities where there weren’t any other schools for children to attend. She clearly saw something in me and wanted to be a part of the journey. She gave me a cheque in an envelope that day for $10,000. I remember opening it and seeing it as I left the meeting and my hands were shaking, I couldn’t believe that someone could be so generous. It was truly the first moment that anyone had believed that we were capable of pulling off something like this.

15 years on, this donor remains one of our most committed supporters and later told me that she had written the cheque before the meeting, put it in her handbag and had decided to either give it to me at the meeting or rip it up on the way home if the meeting didn’t go to plan.

4. Finding land in Katuuso and breaking ground on the first school

We were back and forth between Australia and Uganda during every University holiday speaking to local, district and national government, the Ministry of Education, meeting other non-profits, figuring out where a school was most needed and trying to broker relationships with community leaders who were keen to spearhead a community run and led school. After quite a few false starts, and a lot of meetings with different tiers of Government, we landed on the Mpigi district and found a block of 10 acres of jungle in a tiny village called Katuuso. When we first visited the community was reserved and didn’t trust that we would deliver on our promises. During the first community meetings we discovered that another Westerner had come by years ago and promised to build a school but never returned so we recognised that building trust, under-promising and over-delivering and working slowly in partnership with the community was absolutely critical. We had hours of meetings, often bridged by translators who helped us all communicate and formed a steering committee of influential elders who would mobilise the community to help build the school, staff and run it.

5. Surrounding ourselves with people who lifted us higher. 

We were so privileged to have a group of influential people from all walks of business who rallied around and believed in us from the very beginning and were happy to take a risk on us, invest in our development and help build School for Life. Mark Riley, Jack Elliott, Darren Perry, Matt Day, Will Britten, Ben Colman, Nadia Badawi, Mark Cubit, Steve and Melissa Burcher and Linda O’Brien were some of the incredible people who mentored and guided us from the very beginning and still remain an active part of School for Life to this day. Their advice, counsel and unwavering support has been critical to School for Life’s success. You can never underestimate the power of strong mentors to guide you along the way. I am forever grateful for the incredible support and generosity people have shown me and School for Life over the past 1.5 decades. 

6. 15th May 2010: hosting our first ever Black Tie Ball at The Hilton Hotel

After a myriad of set backs and a lot of “nos” in funding pitches, we knew we needed to go for broke to raise funds and profile if we were ever going to be able to get the first classrooms built. We needed runs on the board to prove the concept. So we booked the Grand Ballroom at The HIlton Hotel in Sydney in early March 2010, promising that we would have 550 guests attend our Ball on 15th May. It was nail bitingly short notice on reflection but we went for broke with an amazing committee of volunteers who helped bring it all together. 2 weeks out, we’d sold about 43 tickets and we were incredibly nervous about how we were going to pay the Hilton. How on earth were we going to pull this off? So we asked anyone we’d ever met in our lives to attend, aligned with Havaianas and Coca Cola, and managed to sell the event out (and have a waiting list), raising $100k that night through our ‘Buy a Brick’ initiative which gave us the funding we needed to build the first two classrooms, 10 toilets and a bore hole to provide the whole Katuuso community with clean water. IT WAS A MIRACLE. This event would become a sandstone part of School for Life’s DNA, a hit on the Sydney social calendar and now our biggest fundraising initiative annually.

7. 2010 - Meeting Janepher 

Great people are critical to any business’ growth, culture and fabric and the most incredible one I’ve had the pleasure of working with during School for Life’s journey walked into our lives in 2010 when we were looking for a principal to run the school. We’d been told about a bright young spark called Janepher who lived in Kampala (Uganda's capital city) and when we met her she lived up to our every expectation and more. Arriving in six inch high heels she was a force to be reckoned with - incredibly gifted, so passionate and radiating love and joy for children. She says she wanted to run away that day when she saw that she was interviewing for a half built school in the middle of nowhere and was going to be staying in accommodation with a leaking roof and no latrine or shower. But she stuck it out that day, and continues to, to this day. Janepher has held the hands of children, their mothers and fathers, she has been the heartbeat of the community, a leader, an inspiration and a guide to so many and the legacy she leaves is truly immeasurable. 

8. January 31st 2011 - the opening of Katuuso Primary and Vocational School

The first 80 children and 5 teachers came to their newly built 2 classroom school for the very first time with Janepher at the helm. The children started in the Australian equivalent of Kindergarten and Year 1. It was difficult to decipher their age because most of them didn’t have birth certificates as they had been born onto the floor of a mud hut. They were given school uniforms which were, for many of them, the first piece of brand new clothing they had ever owned. The teachers had to teach them how to do up the buttons and tie the shoelaces on their shoes because many of them had never owned a pair of shoes before. The children were painfully shy, couldn’t look you in the eye and flinched if you raised your hand expressively when speaking. Many of them struggled to concentrate and learn, and we realised we needed to provide them with nutritious meals to support their learning. When we started feeding them 3 meals a day at school, they grew so quicklt that we realised that many of them had stunted growth due to malnutrition and they were actually much older than we had originally thought. They were learning and we were learning so much more. We’d quickly come to realise that school was a place that was safe, happy and nurturing - a place where they could be children, free from domestic labour and subsistence farming to provide for their families. 

9. Investing in local talent - Rachael

A core objective of School for Life’s has always been to empower members of the local communities in which we work with employment and training opportunities. When we met Rachel she was working with us as a cleaner. She would come early and finish late, she worked hard and clearly had an endgame in mind. She quickly told us that she was saving up to put herself through teacher training college to become a teacher. She had a certain sparkle and drive that was unique so we secured funding to give her a scholarship to pursue her dream of becoming a teacher. She has been working with us for nearly 15 years and is now the Dean of Studies at Katuuso. She is a real life testament to the power of education and investing in the capacity of incredible local leaders, giving them a hand up not a hand out. 

10. Understanding firsthand the true meaning of the ripple effect of education 

The ripple effect is something that is regularly referred to when talking about the impact of education but nothing would prepare me to see this come to fruition in real life. When we first opened the library our students would borrow books and take them home to teach not just their brothers and sisters but also their parents how to read and write as well. The flow on effect of this was that the parents came into Katuuso and asked for the opportunity to attend adult literacy classes. Many of them had never attended or completed primary school, were illiterate and wanted to learn how to read and write. We were blown away by the lack of embarrassment or judgment attached to a pure desire to learn. One of our cooks, Kasibante, even completed his adult literacy classes and then aged 28 enrolled in Primary 7. We made him a larger school uniform and he completed his Primary Leaving Certificate, working before and after school to fulfill the duties of his role whilst studying at school during the day. 

The students would become agents of change in their families and the wider community at large in a way that we would never have expected. 

11. Meeting Pauline

We first met Pauline in 2011 at a student enrolment day. She has Down Syndrome and had been badly neglected due to her disability being stigmatised by the broader community. A deep seeded belief in witchcraft had led the community to believe that she had been possessed by the devil and should be hidden away. When we met her she was physically unwell, her hair was red from such bad malnutrition and she spoke very little. We enrolled her, provided her with specialised care and taught her sign language. 12 years on she is a treasured and valued member of the School for Life community and is healthy, happy and learning. Her inclusion has helped shift stigma, and change community mindsets and beliefs around disability and resulted in other parents bringing their children with other special needs to join the schools. 

12. 2015-2017 navigating catalytic growth in partnership with the Cotton On Foundation - an investment that would take us from 1 to 3 schools in 24 months

In 2015 we were ready to scale up and had developed a plan to build another primary school and a high school to filter both streams of graduates into and complete their education journeys. We had purchased 30 more acres of dense jungle and we were actively looking for more funding when we heard about Cotton On Foundation’s goal of providing 20,000 children with education by 2020. It was the perfect alignment! After many conversations they agreed to fund the construction of the next two schools. It was one of those moments where you know you’re biting off a bit more than you can chew and you’re going to have to chew as fast as you can so you don’t choke. We went from running 1 school to 3 schools, educating 400 to 1000 students and employing 40 to 120 staff in two years. It was speedy growth and the shift from running a primary to a high school was a steep learning curve. We’d need to find specialist staff to deliver a much more complex and specialised curriculum, build science and ICT labs, arrange buses to move the students between campuses and navigate the complexities of dealing with adolescents. 

13. May 2017 - Meeting Jess

In May 2017 I was looking for an Executive Assistant to join our Australian team. Jess came into our Sydney office for an interview and I was blown away by her calm and considered nature, growth mindset and desire to make a difference. I hired her on the spot and she has been with School for Life now for over 6 years, working her way diligently up through different roles in SfL. She spent 6 months in Uganda doing an impact evaluation, before returning to Australia to be Donor Relations Manager and is now our Head of Fundraising. No challenge has ever been too big for Jess (she lived in a village in Uganda alone for 6 months and self certified herself as a Salesforce admin!) and it’s been one of the biggest highlights of my career watching her grow, step outside of her comfort zone and lean into the discomfort of growth. She’s a huge part of the fabric and culture of SfL and I’m forever grateful she walked into our office in 2017!

14. March 2020 - the COVID 19 outbreak - not just surviving but thriving through the pandemic and 2 years of school closures. 

I’d just returned to Uganda in early March 2020 when we started hearing news of a strange virus that had come out of China. Little did we know, this virus was going to shut the entire world down around us within the next two weeks. Uganda declared a lockdown for 21 days and our students were forced to return home and start learning using printed materials that our teachers diligently prepared and delivered to them at their homes via motorbikes. Every time the President came onto the television, he would extend the lockdown and before we knew it, we were looking down the barrel of having our schools closed for 2 whole years for face to face learning. Our hard working team worked tirelessly to keep the students engaged and learning during this time, delivering weekly take home learning materials, making menstrual hygiene management kits and face masks, supporting with food and hygiene products, conducting small group learnings and taking part in professional development, learning how to use computers and getting themselves ready to be even better teachers for when the children returned to school. Our construction team even constructed boarding facilities at our high school for 600 students to live on campus when they returned to school. Their resilience and innovation was admirable and thanks to their agility and hard work, we had 97% of students return to school in 2022, compared to the nation’s average of 70%!

15. 2022, schools reopen and the high school boarding houses open for the first time - planting seeds for the future

In January 2022, we finally reopened our schools to face to face learning and our boarding houses opened for the first time. Boarding facilities allow us to keep the students safe, healthy and happy, to grow them inside and outside the classroom with Clubs, drama, music, sport, computer skills, practical skilling programs.

When sitting and talking to our Head Prefect Lyn about the boarding and her ambitions, she told me “I am going to build a school like School for Life so that other kids like me can have the same opportunity I’ve been given.’ And then she said with incredible conviction, ‘and I won’t let you down’... That moment was life-changing for me.  It all hit me in one moment that if Lyn went on to deliver on her promise, thousands more lives would be impacted - and Lyn is just one of our students. Imagine what the other 2499 are going to do with their education. With your support, we are changing lives and futures forever.

The learnings

1. How do you eat an elephant? One chunk at a time. The big hairy audacious goal can seem scary, paralysing even, so breaking down the big goals into bite sized, achievable chunks is critical to ensure you make progress and just keep putting one foot in front of the other, even when the path forward isn’t clear.

2. Sustainable international development needs to be locally led and owned. We prioritised finding and empowering local leaders from the very beginning and they have managed the relationships with multiple stakeholders - parents/guardians, the broader community, government officials and ministries, from the very beginning. If you want to create sustainable and long lasting development, providing local people with the skills and capacity they need to own and run things long term is absolutely crucial.

3. The success of any business comes back to good people and strong culture. It’s taken time but we’ve built a really strong, aligned culture at SfL. Our aim is to be the best relationship managers in the world, and we truly believe in treating donors personally and with respect and gratitude. SfL celebrates reflection, growth and learning, diversity and innovation. 

4. When you connect people and purpose, magic happens. I believe that in life, people long for two things: connection and community - a sense of belonging. School for Life is a place where people can align to a deeper and higher purpose than themselves and their own personal goals and ambitions. They can connect in a space where they find other like-minded people and can feel that they are truly making a difference in the world.

5. When you let go of fear, anything is possible. Building something from nothing takes a relentless amount of stamina and ability to lean into discomfort almost on the daily. I’ve learnt over the years that it’s ok to not have all the answers to the myriad of questions that lie in front of you. I’ve learnt that it’s in the times of the greatest discomfort you grow the most and if you can stick it out, and persist through uncertainty you will come out stronger. It’s ok to just take the next most logical step forward and figure the rest out as you go. 

So what does the future hold? 

Next year, our first cohort of students who started with us in 2011 at Katuuso will graduate high school. This is a monumental moment for us and one we are excited to invite you to celebrate with us! We can’t wait to see what our students do with the education they’ve received at our schools.

We’ve spent a lot of time over the past 24 months drawing up our vision for the future. We believe that every child, no matter where they are born should have access to a quality education and using the learnings we have gained over the past 15 years, we will continue to expand our impact and educate more vulnerable children across the developing world. 

The next 15 years we will continue to work shoulder to shoulder with local leaders to provide sustainable education solutions that break generations free from the cycle of poverty. We are in this for the long haul and we recognise that change may be slow and generational but we can’t wait to see what the future holds. The children have big dreams - they want to be doctors, teachers, pilots and I know that with their resilience and determination they will achieve their ambitious dreams and go on to change the world.

Together, we are having a huge impact and I want to take this opportunity to thank every single person who has played a part in School for Life’s journey - our Board members, global team, donors, mentors and advisers, you know who you are. Thank you for being a part of this wild ride, we couldn’t do what we do without you! 

Love, Annabelle xx