WE ALSO WANT TO INCREASE THE CAPACITY OF ADULTS, AND IN PARTICULAR EMPOWER WOMEN THROUGH THE PROVISION OF VOCATIONAL AND SKILLS TRAINING.

WHY VOCATIONAL TRAINING?  

  • Most adults in rural Uganda are subsistence farmers

  • They earn low & unstable incomes

  • The average adult has received only 5.4 years of schooling

  • 78% of the population is illiterate

  • Only 49% of uneducated women make decisions about cash earnings in their households 

What School For Life Does 

  • We provide our students with skills training opportunities alongside access to a traditional education.

  • We facilitate training opportunities to improve the income and financial independence of adults in the community.

  • We provide employment opportunities with an emphasis on skills development.

  • We work to empower women and improve their social standing in the community.

  • 19 of our Senior 4 graduates have commenced vocational training courses at Colleges to pursue careers such as nursing, beauty, hairdressing and carpentry.

How We Do It 

  • We’ve partnered with SAWA World, Fundi Bots and Wezesha Impact to deliver skills training programs to our students. The programs include income generating activities such as making reusable sanitary pads, sandals, cooking, urban gardening as well as the delivery of entrepreneurial skills for starting up and continuing to run and manage a small business.

  • We’ve partnered with SewAid International to provide an intensive course in tailoring for women in the direct community and around East Africa.

  • We have built a tailoring room with access to sewing machines, fabrics and other resources.

  • We’ve hired a highly skilled tailoring teacher.

  • We provide financial literacy workshops for all our staff and our staff participate in a savings circle to help fund larger investments.

What’s Next?

We are building on our partnerships with SAWA World, Fundi Bots, Wezesha Impact and technical and vocational colleges around East Africa to up-skill and train our students to not only become job-ready, but also have the skills and knowledge to embark on their own entrepreneurial journey.

How Can You Help?

You can empower an adult in the community and give them a skill that will open new opportunities for them and their families. Sponsor a woman to train as a tailor or donate to train a team member like a cook or maintenance worker.

SPONSOR

CASE STUDY: ROSE’S STORY

Rose is an amazing person. She is a 39-year-old single mother of two young children with her eldest, daughter Annet, a student at Katuuso Primary and Vocational School.

Rose left her husband because of domestic violence and moved back to her father’s home. For a year and a half she lived there without a job helping around the farm, until she heard about our tailoring training at Katuuso.

After attending the training program, Rose secured a full time job in our tailoring team (KUMI Tailoring) in 2014, making the products we sell in Uganda and Australia.

Not too long after Rose joined our tailoring team, Rose’s elderly father, Steven, was diagnosed with cataracts – the result of years of welding without proper eye protection. The cost of removing his cataracts was over $500, near an impossible amount for him or his children to consider paying. Steven was resigned to going blind.

By working and saving, Rose managed to pay for her father’s critical eye treatment. Steven underwent an operation to remove the cataracts and had his sight fully restored! As a result, Steven was able to resume his job as a mechanic.

Whilst Rose’s father is no longer with us, having sadly passed on recently, the impact of joining School for Life’s adult vocational education program has completely transformed Rose’s life and that of her family.

She has been able to afford her own home and continues to earn a living, enabling her to build a better life for her family. As a single mother living in rural Uganda, this is not an easy feat!

Your help and support can empower adults like Rose with a vocational education that will ultimately benefit the whole community.

TAKE ACTION / SPONSOR

Success Stories
Goretti

Sweet and shy Goretti lives with her aunt, uncle and cousins in a small house in the local village. When Goretti was younger, she moved in with her aunt and uncle because her parents could no longer look after her. She was one of our first students at Katuuso Primary, starting in 2011 when she was just 4 years old. Now, Goretti is in Senior One at Mbazzi High School, and is relishing the honour of being a high school student in her community - something that is taken for granted in Australia, but in Uganda, represents freedom and opportunity. Goretti also loves attending School for Life because she hopes to one day become a pilot in Uganda - a dream which she knows can only be reached with the help of a good education.

Violah

Violah has been at School for Life since since she was six years old. Sadly, Violah has experienced hardship no child should ever deal with. Her Dad passed away three years ago, leaving her Mum without the financial means to support her family - so she left Violah and her siblings with their elderly grandmother. Every day, Violah has to wake up at 5am to fetch water, cook meals and make sure that her younger sisters are properly looked after. Then she walks half an hour to get to school. Despite this adversity, Violah has flourished at school and has made many friends. She loves that School for Life is "helping me to build a future". After finishing school, Violah hopes to become a teacher to help other children.

Umar

Umar is one of our best performing students at Mbazzi Riverside High School - but life has not always been easy for Umar. His father abandoned the family in 2015, leaving his mother to struggle to support her five children on her own. School for Life has provided Umar with opportunities that may never else have eventuated for him. Umar begun his journey with School for Life at Katuuso Primary School, where his academic ability was quickly revealed. Now, he is a thriving member of our Senior 1 class and a formidable wing on the football team. With a love for mathematics, Umar is set on studying electronic engineering after finishing his senior studies - a goal which he is the first to admit is now within reach thanks to the skills and resources provided to him by School for Life.

Rose Nambooze

Rose is a 32‐year‐old single mother of one. She started working with SFL in 2013, after taking part in our tailoring training program. Prior to working with us, she was unemployed and living in her father's home helping to care for her father, who had cataracts, and his farm.
Thanks to her full time employment, Rose was able to save enough money to pay for an eye operation and restore her father's sight, allowing him to return to work as a mechanic. Now, Rose has moved into her own home and no longer relies on her father financially. 

Joseph

Joseph is one of our Special Needs teachers at Katuuso. After surviving a severe case of malaria at age four, he was left permanently deaf. He was raised by his single mother and attended a nursery school for the handicapped and later transferred to a school for the Deaf in Kampala. He eventually mastered sign language and pursued a university degree in education. Joseph decided to become a teacher so that he could give the gift of education to others who are hearing impaired.

Teddy Namatovu

Teddy is a participant in the Kumi Tailoring Program and four of her five children attend Katuuso Primary School. She and her husband farm two acres of land, which supplies fluctuating revenue. Participation in the Kumi Tailoring Project has secured income to reliably pay for school fees, nutritious meals and renovations to the family home. Teddy has gained a great deal of self-esteem from her ability to support her family and she takes pride in independently financing the education of all five children. Teddy has also been working on her numeracy and administration skills. She was appointed Treasurer of the tailoring group and will be responsible for keeping records of their savings.

Flaviah Nassaazi

Flaviah Nassaazi started working at Katuuso Primary and Vocational School in 2011. Prior to cooking at the school, she and her husband were subsistence farmers. They worked tirelessly for small yields and minimal income to support their family. Flaviah's cooking job not only enables her to pay school fees for her children, but she has also invested in a local barbershop business. She is now passing her cooking skills onto her eldest son Frank, who has also joined the school's cooking staff. Flaviah and her husband attend the adult literacy classes offered weekly at the school. Her English and reading have improved immensely, as well as her confidence.

Rachel

In 2010, Rachel began as a cleaner at Katuuso Primary and Vocational School. She was working to save money to study to be a teacher at University. Thanks to Barrie and Simone Goldsmith, her dream of studying came true and she is now fully qualified.