Empowered to take action: Three villages start a kindergarten to educate their children

“Zone A (Gankanga, Lwempama and Gamugungu villages) have opened up their Nursary school with around 30 kids now running for two weeks.” by Martin

A meeting with the people of the village of Gankanga in June

It’s amazing what people can do when they are empowered to address challenges facing their communities. In summer of 2011, URF rolled out a new model of community development by motivating people to be at the forefront of fight againt poverty and illiteracy that URF is leading in rural communities of Uganda. The June Community Strategic Planning workshop brought to gether the 21 villages that URF serves to identify resources, gaps/needs, and potential solutions. URF grouped them into Zones of 3 neighboring villages and encouraged them to start mapping out potential solutions to priority needs. The updates below are a result of these efforts.

“URF updates from the ground: “Zone A (Gankanga, Lwempama and Gamugungu) have opened up their Nursary school with around 30 kids now for two weeks. They decided to start this term just to see how it will work next year when they will officially open the school. They have three teachers; two from Lwempama and one from Gankanga. On 29/9/11. They are going to have the parents meeting at 2pm.” by Martin Mugerwa – staff

Then a follow up after the meeting:

“We (URF staff) attended the parents meeting in Gankanga last week and they told us their urgent needs and we promised to give them some which included: School fence, Humps, Wall clock, Dry stand, Urinals, Toilet papers, Chalks and Blackboard, Books, Text books. Parents contributed some things and URF also covered the rest: Clock, Charts 4, Files, Pencils, One black book, Water guard   1pack with 80 tablets, Obutimba for dry stand, Colored pencils   70. They named the Nursery, St. Mary Junior Academy” –posted by Waliggo Charles

Other communities are also working on water projects, building schools, building a house for an elderly woman, and many others.