Education in Uganda - Is Education Really the Best Medicine for Poverty?

The shortest distance out of poverty is not a hand out for food, clothing or shelter. If you want to support an entire community to become self-reliant, commit to establishing their education system.

We have so many educational issues in the US, why do we care that Ugandan children don't have schools or that their children cannot go to the ones that do exist?

The more education a nation receives, the more globally responsible they become. When you teach a child how to become something, anything, you teach her to expect more. Expect more from herself. Expect more from her community. Expect more from life. You create an internal gauge of accountability. With accountability comes contribution. If we want our children to be responsible, contributing members of society, what do we do? We teach them how, we teach them why and we expect them to deliver.

Imagine a world in which we no longer have to pour millions of dollars into malaria treatments or HIV treatments? It is possible. It is possible through education in Uganda. If we want to reduce the amount of financial support the US provides other countries, we need to invest in education, our own and theirs.

In a recent New York Times article by Celia W. Dugger http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/09/world/africa/09safrica.html more focus is being put on education and low-fee schools in Africa to serve the underserved and they are seeing great results. These Leap schools are described as bare-bones private schools tucked away in abandoned factories, shopping centers, shacks and high-rises. What makes them a key element in the effort to combat poverty is the schools instill more than a fierce work ethic. Each day, students have a life orientation class, or L.O. as they call it, where they talk about the personal problems that can derail an education” a stepfather who expects a girl to clean house rather than do her homework, a student trying to study in the shack where her family lives and runs a saloon, and another student who goes to school hungry because her mother's salary as a maid runs out before the end of the month.

As a result of the combined efforts by Just Like My Child http://www.justlikemychild.com/ and The Children's Academy for the Collective Heart we too, have also created schools in rural communities that teach more than a traditional education in Uganda. We have taken the initiative to start a poultry project, plant fruit trees and begin growing a garden that the will be utilized as both an agricultural educational tool as well as a supplemental source of food for the students.

A quality education is making a real difference for the most neglected and financially challenged population of our time. With their progress comes a new reality for their families and the country as a whole.

We are consistently raising money to secure motivated teachers who have the vision and mission to engage with rural communities and provide children with an education with far-reaching results. We also need to supply them with the tools to provide life skills and a knowledge base that will create an opportunity to change an entire country by creating strong leaders.

For the sake of themselves and their communities, doesn't every child deserve a solid education in Uganda?

Please contribute to our efforts to education children for a better life: https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=26195&Itemid=108