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This is Africa
Home to 54 countries and thousands of different languages and cultural groups.
It's is also home to a great number of the world's Least Developed Countries.
Africa has seen an massive amounts of aid and an immense population growth
in the past 50 years.
Uganda. A nation of over 35 million people is located in the heart of
eastern africa
and has been listed as one of the UN's Least Developed Countries since
1971
Center of a regional war that tore apart the country for 20 years,
Uganda and other parts of Africa have been left in shambles
making it home to hundreds of humanitarian aid projects to help
in their recovery.
And although this aid has helped bring much light to a devastating
situation,
The countries efforts to develop are falling short.
Especially their schools.
Education in Uganda
Is a concept that was introduced years ago,
but sustaining quality education is the
question that many schools have not answered for decades.
The "gap" is in terms of quality.
Our education system,
in Gulu,
at the moment we are at the very bottom as far as national examination is concerned.
We're not doing very well. What types of challenges do the school have? Well they have every type of challenge that you can think of.
The classrooms are overcrowded.
In most cases, the government, which is the main funder
of these schools have failed to provide the adequate infrastructure to provide
quality education services to the community.
This is Johnny.
Johnny wakes up every day, goes to school and studies hard.
Attending school every year, Johnny pays a school fee.
His mandatory school fee pays for things like his uniform, his school lunch,
and school supplies.
But as costs rise every year,
It makes it difficult for Johnny to pay.
And when he no longer has the ability to pay, his school can't afford to
keep him as a student.
And this problem goes beyond just Johnny.
As this problem goes on, day after day, while his school crumbles,
it no longer has funds to provide school supplies,
to feed its students,
To even keep its doors open.
And while his school continues to collapse, this problem carries on in communities
all throughout Uganda.
But what if there were a sustainable solution?
I'm Drew Edwards and I'm a Co-Founder at Pangea Educational Development and I'm also our Director of International Operations
Where I oversee all of our programs.
Our mission is to empower schools and Unify
communities through the creation of sustainable school projects.
We partner with school in Uganda but,
we don't necessarily create schools.
We're trying to empower them to
make a difference in their own lives.
The approach we take is generally based around trying to allow people to
recognize the challenges around them and recognize the strengths that they
have and give them the resources that they need to be able to make a difference in
their lives.
I've seen a considerable contribution by Non-Governmental Organizations in all schools,
Primary and Secondary.
Unicef,
World Vision, and many others.
They have put in structures like classrooms, teacher's houses, latrines, provided furniture
and all that.
But you will find that the maintenance is the problem.
People just look at it that this is a Save the Children classroom,
this is a Save the Children house, this is a Unicef classroom
this is a Unicef water tank.
So, when these facilities break down, they run again to
World Vision and say
"Hey, your classroom is leaking."
Each organization that we'd been a part of, and most of the organizations that we've seen
on the ground
were making a great difference in people's lives but they weren't making a
long-term sustainable difference.
So, that in itself tells us that something isn't working
by just giving things, giving resources that gonna eventually deteriorate,
without any type of infrastructure that's going to support them in the long
term.
That tells us that what we've been doing in the past isn't working.
Our partnerships with schools start relationships. There's no way that
we're going to achieve that final goal if we don't work together and if we're not accountable together.
We try to get
every one of are volunteers involved with students with community members, so that,
it's not just us paying for people to get work done, it's us getting down on our
hands and knees, getting dirty, and together building a structure that's gonna contribute
to a sustainable future of that school.
So, at Tooro High School a great example is our Poultry Project because Tooro High School
was located in a community in Fort Portal that had told us, there aren't many people that are producing
that are supplying chickens, that are supplying eggs
and the kids at Tooro, the teachers at Tooro were saying " hey, this would be a great way
to teach our kids basic,
basic skills on
an agricultural project..."
"They'd be able to see a prime example of what success can look like with full community
involvement, with commitment to a project and having solid partners in the community.
So, we're
helping dig a trench
that is going to be the perimeter from here
to the girls dormitory right there.
Right by the chicken coup, which we are going
to be working with the school
to help provide 500 chickens.
Hi, I'm Andrew Bauer
Co-Founder and CEO of Pangea Educational Development
If you can help
alongside with them and give them community
projects
you can have a school thrive.
These chickens are going to be raised
by the school and with the school.
And so, in September, once these chickens are ready, they're going to be selling them to
the market.
Then they're going to restock the project
with fresh, young chicks, and start the whole process over again.
We need to look at
a way how this school can be self-sustaining.
As in having projects that are income generating and that even when the community
does not give us the money, we are able to provide basics at school.
Our walk towards sustainability, again,
it's simple, but it's also dynamic, it's flexible
and it has to be adjusted to each community and each school.
Different schools have different challenges.
And it would be arrogant of us
not to acknowledge that.
Another project that clearly illustrates the idea of community
is the Sewing Machine Project at St. James.
Not only
does it generate an income for the school,
but it also provides that resource the community and for the community to come into the school on a daily basis.
Girls are coming into the community who have dropped out of school to get vocational training with the sewing machines.
The model still works anywhere you go.
These projects are tailored to the schools, they're tailored to the needs of the
communities.
We as an organization are really confident because
we've already made that community investment in establishing
relationships to community so that everyone in the community is stakeholder
in the school and in the projects that were going to create there.
Awach is a school that we just started to invest in.
It doesn't have a sustainable project yet, but one of the key projects that
they wanted to focus on was a soccer field.
Soccer is such a relational game and it brings people together. And so, the Soccer Project at
Awach
was just a great way for us to kinda get to know the school and start that relationship.
But, it also helped unify the community and it gave the school its identity back.
A schol. that kind of had been displaced because of the war, the first thing they wanted
back was their name to wear proudly,
to display that name
and seeing those kids with those jerseys on was probably one of the happiest days I've had.
I think when we have full community engagement in what's going on,
we clearly know what needs and what projects are going to work
in that community.
It's very easy to walk in to a school and see what they don't have.
It's even harder to go in to a school, see what they don't have, but see where they want to be.
Now let's imagine Johnny again.
Imagine Johnny's school can now sustain itself.
Now the school can pay for Johnny's uniform, pay for his school supplies, pay for food.
All the while keeping their doors open.
Now Johnny can spend less time figuring out how to go to school
and more time how well he's doing in school.
Johnny, his friends, and their community
now control their own future.
The future of their school is in their hands.
And imagine this change is not only in Johnny's school, but his entire community.
All throughout Uganda. All throughout Africa. All around the world.
Sustainability is our
number 1 goal.
Because we want to see these projects prosper.
I know where this school
has been
where we are now, and
I'm one person who is responsible for planning
where this school should go.
I think when you empower people
to take a role to become a stakeholder, whether that's, you know,
the head of the PTA, whether that's the head boy or head girl from each class
or whether that's the teacher, everybody's a stakeholder and everyone's a part of making those decisions.
We're bringing onboard the students, the teachers, the community
to actually share
and see what is their role very clearly.
So at the end of the day they own these projects. So this kind of involvement
can help the sustainability because it will make the community own it. They look at it as their own.
They have participated in it
so it is going to be their responsibility again.
The first conversation we ever had about starting an NGO was
that were not going to do it if it's just the same way.
Better to be
80% sufficient than 100% dependent.
The change has got to come from them, we can just point them in the right direction.
We always have a saying here in Uganda that's "Education for Success,"
Education is a perfect platform to be able to
make some type of
long-term change in any community.
When else do you get an entire community to come together?
Sustainability is the thing.
It is without doubt the way forward.
It can't be about
short term outcomes. It should be about long-term solutions.
By working together there's nothing that can stop us from keeping schools
open and keeping education possible.
But we can do it alone. We need your help.
By Raising your Hand for PED
there are multiple ways we can, together, make a difference.
Sign the Pledge.
By signing the pledge you're becoming an advocate for a community's rights to have
an education.
By pledging today, your enlisting to be part of the team that wants to fight for the
educational rights for students and communities all around the world.
Get involved.
Our sustainable programs are made possible by tremendous volunteers
by people like you.
find out more about volunteering in your neighborhood or with us by visiting
our website.
Through volunteering you can help mobilize this movement.
Spread the Word.
Help us raise awareness and improve education for students around the world.
It's as simple as going to our website
and downloading our media kit.
in this kit you'll find information about how we can mobilize this movement
through social media.
And most importantly,
Share this Video.
It only takes a few seconds and it's easy to do.
Because education empowers change.