We’re thrilled to share our latest news: School for Life is piloting a 'hub and spoke' partnership program with two local government schools.
Over the next few years, we’ll be working closely with two schools in the Mpigi district to rollout our holistic framework.
Our goal is to provide hundreds more children with the support they need to access a quality education.
The pilot program will also test the scalability of our model, paving the way to expanding into more communities and reaching more children in the future.
It’s an exciting next step on our mission to educate poverty out of existence!
Identifying the need
Thousands of children in the rural Mpigi district of Uganda are missing out on a quality education. And the impact of the pandemic and lack of government funding are further widening the education gap.
Last year, we launched our Menstrual Hygiene Management program. This initiative took us into the local community and showed us just how great the need is. We connected with teachers and students in seven local schools to provide menstrual hygiene kits. Their response was overwhelmingly positive.
But it was clear that it wasn’t enough.
After completing a needs assessment at four public schools, we found that:
Only one of the schools had clean drinking water
Only one of the schools provided a meal for children
On average, the schools could only seat 60% of their students
Faced with these barriers (and more), student dropout rates in rural Uganda are almost 2.5 times higher than in neighbouring countries.
More needs to be done. And it needs to be done quickly.
Finding the solution
Our new government partnership is a huge step in the right direction.
Because of our strong foundations and deep knowledge in Uganda, we are ready and well-equipped to use a ‘hub and spoke’ approach to deliver much-needed support and provide more children with the opportunity to access a quality education.
Through this innovative pilot program which will break down the barriers to education, we’ll scale and replicate our model in two local schools to:
Provide daily porridge and lunch for all children
Install water purifiers, and water tanks to provide safe drinking water
Upgrade classrooms and supply learning resources and sports equipment
Provide teachers with at least one capacity development opportunity each term
Support students health and wellbeing through workshops on water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH).
Establish effective school governance, child protection policies and engage parents
Expand the highly effective Menstrual Hygiene Management program across communities to keep girls in school and learning.
Over 660 existing students will benefit from this pilot. Thousands of women and girls will receive the specialised support they need to help them succeed. And entire communities will reap the rewards.
We know our model works. By breaking down the barriers to education, we can reduce school dropout rates, improve academic results and empower children to break the cycle of poverty.
Now we’ll be breaking down the barriers in two more schools. And hopefully many more to come!
We can't wait to see the impact this will have on the lives of so many children in Uganda.
Who will benefit from our government partnership?
Give the gift of education every month!
Make a monthly tax-deductible donation of your choice and support us on our mission as we seek to ‘educate poverty out of existence’. You will be helping us to plan for the future so we can scale our impact and reach more children.
