Activities

Action plan

Stichting Learning 4 Life wants to improve the quality of primary school education in rural Uganda. Learning in existing schools will be stimulated by the introduction of organically grown school meals, new teaching methods and teaching aids and the improvement of school buildings and facilities. Every school will be supported by a Key Farmer Trainer and a Teacher Trainer and will be linked to a UK school in order to further the exchange of teaching experience and pen friendships.

Parents, teachers and pupils will be encouraged to help develop the land around the schools with a view to growing food for school meals and to learning organic agriculture methods. Pupils often walk long distances to school without having eaten breakfast. It is very important that they get healthy food and drink during the long school day. The organic agriculture skills which pupils, teachers and parents pick up in the school garden can also be applied at home farms.

The villages in which our schools are situated have no electricity nor running water. There are two wet seasons in Uganda, from March to June and from September to December, but also two dry seasons, from December to March and from July to September. During the latter two there is shortage of water and especially of safe drinking water. We plan to harvest rainwater from the roofs of the school buildings and store it in above – and below ground water tanks. We also want to install ceramic water filters to ensure that there is sufficient safe water throughout the year.

We aim to improve the school buildings through the renovation and construction of classrooms, kitchens, latrines and the installation of solar lighting. Accommodation for teachers is also important, as they often travel from far away over unpaved roads which can become unpassable during the wet seasons. We also want to supply cupboards, school desks, class libraries, books and toys.

A programme of monthly in school Teacher Training will promote child-centred education, group learning and positive feedback methods. Nursery, P1 and P2 teachers will be able to attend Early Childhood Education workshops.

Too many children in rural areas do not attend school at all or attend only for a few years. We want to achieve that as many children as possible receive education and stay longer at school. We hope that more pupils will take part in the primary leaving examinations (PLE) and that they will have better exam results. In order to stimulate learning and teaching we want to organise fun competitions at the schools such as quizzes based on the curriculum with the chance of winning solar lights. We also encourage and support sports, singing, dancing and debate. These extra activities make life at school more attractive and install a sense of pride in the school. We promote positive learning and have a strict “no beating” policy.

Stichting Learning 4 Life has received donations from a Dutch Education Foundation and additional funding from Rotary Clubs and private donors. These funds will be used for the above aims. In addition, we support the provision of nursery education in the schools.
Presently, twelve rural schools take part in the programme. We have signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Administration of Mubende District and we have regular meetings with the District Education Department and School Inspection Service.
In order to organise and monitor the project, Trustees of the Stichting will visit Mubende each year. Locally, we have appointed a part time Co-ordinator as well as a team of six agricultural instructors and three teacher trainers.

Historic overview

The Learning 4 life project was started in 2015 by the Rotary Club of Abingdon Vesper and Devon Development Education with the help of a donation from a Dutch Education Fund. Stichting Learning 4 Life became a legal entity run by its trustees on 21 November 2016. On 25 February 2017 Charitable Status (ANBI) was conferred, backdated to the foundation date of the Stichting.

Twelve schools are members of the program:

2015 Kyakasimbi Primary School and Kasaana Public Primary School.
2016 Kabubu Primary School and Mugungulu Primary School
2017 Nabibungo Primary School and Christ the King Primary School
2018 Ntungamo Public Primary School and Mawujjo Primary School
2020 Ntunda Primary School and Kitalemwa Primary School
2022 Kyampisi Primary School
2023 Kalagala Primary School

From 17th March 2020 to 10th January 2022 schools were closed due to COVID in order to minimise the spread of the disease. For almost two years children stayed at home and received no formal education as distant teaching was not an option in rural Uganda. Despite the lockdown our Key Farmer Trainers kept the school gardens productive and our builders were able to carry out a number of infrastructure improvements.

When the school doors opened again, we were very pleased to see that most pupils had come back. Enrolment numbers were even larger than before due to the permanent closure of other schools. Catching up is going to be a challenge, especially with so many children needing education at entry level. The Learning 4 Life programme was resumed in full and two trustees were once again able to visit.

Unfortunately, an Ebola outbreak in Mubende District in August 2022 again disrupted the children’s education, causing the third school term to be abbreviated. Learning 4 Life provided every school with disinfectant soap to help keep the children safe. The WHO has now declared the outbreak to be over, so that schools will start the new school year as normal on 6 February 2023.

Trustees of Learning 4 Life will resume their yearly visits and make sure that everything possible is done to achieve quality primary education for rural children in Mubende District.

Project review

The project is now in its tenth year. A lot has been achieved. The number of pupils has increased, in some schools by one third. The pyramid profile of the school, i.e a lot of children in P1 and only few in P7 has started to change as fewer children are dropping out early. More pupils are taking part in the Primary Leaving Exams (PLE) exams and the results have improved. Thanks to healthy school meals, absenteeism has decreased dramatically and lessons has become more interesting through new teaching methods, teaching materials and story books. The teachers are better motivated and the parents are more involved with the school. There is pride and enthusiasm in the schools and the children are better prepared for future challenges, be it as farmers or in other occupations. We have noticed that other schools are copying parts of our programme and teachers who are transferred to other schools take newly acquired skills with them with them.

Initial phase: When a new school joins the program, we make a “baseline” evaluation of the existing situation with regard to pupil enrolment, Primary Leaving Exam (PLE) results, buildings, facilities, etc. We meet with all the stakeholders in the school community, including the parents, who will help prepare and plant the land around the school, the “school garden”. Guided by one of the Key Farmer Trainers (KFT) food will be grown organically to supply healthy school meals to pupils and teachers. At the same time, one of the Teacher Trainers will start introducing new child centred teaching methods. When we decide on the priorities for the improvement of infrastructure such as classrooms, rainwater storage, latrines, kitchen, teacher accommodation, we always involve the local leaders and the parents. Their practical contributions to the construction are very valuable and this involvement helps ensure that buildings will be maintained.

School gardens: Learning 4 Life has given tools, seeds, fruit- and shade trees to all schools so that maize, beans, fruit and vegetables are being grown. Some of the seeds are bio-fortified with iron or Vitamin A. The produce finds its way into healthy school meals for all children and teachers. The organic growing methods our KFTs teach include making organic fertilisers, pesticides and fungicides. As almost all have a farming background, this knowledge is very useful as it reduces costs and prevents dangerous unprotected spraying of chemicals. The school meals motivate the children to come to school and gives them energy to study. Previously, many children did not have anything to eat for the whole day. There is a clear correlation between school meals and school results. Some schools have farm animals or bees and the children learn how to handle them safely. Honey production can be a good source of income which requires little space.

Water and Kitchens with fuel saving stoves: All Learning 4 Life schools have got gutters leading rainwater from the roof into 10,000 litre pvc storage tanks. We are also building big, 80,000 litres underground water storage tanks with hand operated pumps. This means that pupils no longer need to carry heavy jerry cans from faraway wells or dirty swamps and that more time is available for education.

The school kitchens are fitted with fuel saving stoves and chimneys. These clay ovens, built by Key Farmer Trainers and pupils using local materials. They reduce the use of firewood by 66%, thus saving trees, money and the environment, whereas the chimneys create a smoke free workplace for the cook and her helpers. Hundreds of agro-friendly grevillea trees have been planted around the school boundaries to compensate the residual use of firewood.

Improvements of the school facilities per school:

At Kasaana Public all classrooms have been renovated including new concrete floors. These prevent the breeding of jiggers, who thrive in dusty maram floors and penetrate into the bare feet of the children, where they cause nasty infections. We also built new latrines with washing facilities for the girls, watertanks and a new kitchen.
At Kabubu three temporary classrooms have been replaced by new permanent ones, 2 water tanks were installed and here, too, the girls got their own latrines. A new Nursery School Block has also been added.
At Mugungulu we built four accommodation units for teachers and two new classrooms for the nursery section. All other classrooms were fully renovated and all water tanks renewed.
At Kyakasimbi all existing classrooms have been renovated and a temporary nursery block has been replaced by two new permanent classrooms. Learning 4 Life also built the first big underground water reservoir at this school.
At Christ the King we replaced four mud and wattle classrooms with permanent structures and we added wall plastering, blackboards and concrete floors to four older classrooms. We also built a big underground rainwater storage tank and a fuel saving stove with a chimney in the kitchen. An old church has been converted into a nursery section and an office with a new kind long lasting of paver flooring which has since become our norm..
At Nabibungo Learning 4 Life built four new classrooms to replace mud and wattle ones, as well as a new office, kitchen and store room for the school harvest. This was followed by a big underground water tank containing 80,000 litres of rainwater and teachers’ accommodation with four units.
At Ntungamo, we have installed gutters and built a big underground water reservoir. We built a fuel saving stove and a chimney in the kitchen. We completely renovated eight classrooms.
At Mawujjo, we have repaired the water harvesting system and renovated eight classrooms and the hall where the nursery section is housed. We also added an 80,000 liter underground watertank.
At Ntunda, we have installed gutters and two 10,000 litres pvc tanks, upgraded three existing classrooms with concrete floors and blackboards and constructed 4 new classrooms.
At Kitalemwa, we have constructed seven classrooms, a 10,000 litres pvc water tank and an 80,000 later underground water storage tank.
At Kyampisi, we built 4 new classrooms, a water tank and a kitchen and restored the roof of three mud and wattle classrooms.
At Kyampisi, we built 4 new classrooms, latrine, a pvc watertank and a fuel saving stove.

Teaching methods and materials: Encouraged by our Teacher Trainers, many teachers are now using modern teaching techniques whereby pupils are more actively and creatively involved in the lessons. A different classroom configuration enables the children to work in groups and thus also learn from each other, although this is not always possible in classes with very many children. Cupboards have been placed in many of the classrooms and we are building up a reading library in every class. In addition, most schools have at least one classroom with solar light to enable extra study and tuition in the evening and early hours. We have provided lots of maps, dictionaries, and other teaching aids.

Extra-curricular activities: Twice a year we have held L4L competitions between teams from the different schools at each class level. As the questions were based on the school curriculum, this had a very stimulating effect on learning and exam preparation. Besides the quiz there was either a competition in sports or one in dance, song and music. As a result, the sport teams and choirs of the Learning 4 Life schools have also been successful in district and even national competitions. Learning 4 Life has provided sport outfits and sets of drums. Despite the competitions being very popular, we have discontinued them as transport of hundreds of children had become too difficult.

Nursery sections: All Learning 4 Life schools have a nursery section, for which the parents pay a small contribution. The children who have taken part in these classes have a clear advantage when they start primary school. We support this development with classrooms, teaching materials and toys. We have held workshops on early learning teaching methods for Nursery, P1 and P2 teachers. The workshops include training in phonics, classroom organisation and making visual teaching aids. This is very important as most nursery staff is untrained.

Link schools: Pupils of the Mubende schools have regularly exchanged beautifully decorated letters with the children of their link schools in the UK. This gives them a chance to get first-hand information about each other’s lives in another part of the world and to make friends. As part of World Book Day some of the UK schools have collected money to buy reading books or classroom furniture for the schools in Mubende. This has been very much appreciated.

Covid and Ebola: We provided the schools with health monitoring equipment and disinfectant soap. Even when the schools had to close our KFTs continued to grow crops in the school gardens so that food was available as soon as the schools reopenend.
Adult literacy: Those parents who have worked in the school garden have been offered to take part in a weekly adult literacy class. A number of illiterate parents have taken up this offer, but after a while, enthusiasm waned and these classes have now stopped. However, all of these parents are now able to write their names and no longer need to sign with a cross or a fingerprint, which gives them a lot of satisfaction.

Visits: Except during COVID, two trustees have visited Mubende every year to organise and monitor the project. These busy work visits are very important for finding out first-hand how the project is going, to develop new plans and to meet with the District Education Department and other local authorities. They also motivate the staff and schools to keep improving. The next visit is planned in February/March 2024.

Eco-stoves: The additional environmental programme of building fuel saving eco-stoves in non-Learning 4 Life schools in Mubende District made a lot of progress. The stoves are made from local materials and save 66% of firewood. They also make cooking school meals a lot easier and keep the kitchen free from smoke. This effort is supported by Rotary Clubs in the UK & Ireland, US and Jersey Overseas Aid. Over 100 schools have already been fitted with an eco-stove. At each school local people have been trained to build these mud-stoves in the surrounding communities, thus making an important contribution to the environment, gender equality and people’s health. The money saved on firewood is better spent on education. The District Environment Officer has given us free radio time to publicise the benefits to a wider audience.

All in all, a lot of progress has been made, but more remains to be done. Learning 4 Life will continue to work towards further positive results.