When we opened The Center two and a half years ago, we knew that we wanted to offer creative yet education-based programs. Our vision was to revolutionize the outdated education system in Uganda by providing programs and services that would not replace, but rather complement and enhance, what kids were learning in the schools.
After two years of experimenting with after school programming, we had Faruk, the director of a primary school in the village, approach us and say, “I’m not entirely sure what you do at AIA, but I can tell a significant difference between the students who attend your programs and those who do not.” While flattered by the compliment, we immediately recognized that by only working with the students and not including the schools, a huge opportunity was missed.
We then began inviting schools to come to The Center to use our public library for reading programs and our front yard for PE and sports. This endeavor has since helped us forge new and wonderful partnerships with the primary schools in our community.
For the last year we further developed our partnerships with the primary schools in Nakuwadde by diversifying the programs offered. We now have a handful of schools that on a rotating schedule come to The Center for spelling bees, debates, quizzes, writing prompts and creative writing. All programs are designed and facilitated by Action in Africa staff but executed alongside the teachers from the local schools.
As our relationships with the schools continues to develop, the Action in Africa staff regularly assess how we can better support them and their students. After months of evaluations, we recognized that a significant challenge facing most of the schools is that a majority of their students are not able to afford the daily breakfast, which is a cup of hot porridge. This means that for many, their last meal was the previous days free lunch.
Guaranteeing that no kid is hungry at school, it was a no-brainer for us to begin providing our partner primary schools with the necessary supplies ensuring that all of their students have breakfast daily.
Action in Africa is thrilled to announce that we launched our porridge program at two of our partner schools on the 1st of June and in just four weeks we have served 11,951 cups of porridge. This means that not one student at either school went hungry for the month of June and our promise to these schools is that never again will one of their students miss breakfast.
The long-term vision for this program is to sustainably continue adding primary schools to our porridge program as they maintain developing a relationship with Action in Africa. Will you join with us to help make this happen?
