By Steven Davis | Uganda Director
Uganda School Closure is Over!
Uganda was home to the longest Covid School Closure in the world, with learners formally barred from classes for nearly two full years. According to the National Planning Authority, up to 30 percent of students are expected to not return to their school desks due to teen pregnancy, early marriage and child labour (Aljazeera). SInce Schools reopened on January 10th, the country has seen an additional rise in school fees for youth. Hundreds of schools simply failed to reopen at all due to a lack of funds. These dropout rates are expected to be worse within the refugee communities that SWB works in, and we are ready to provide the social and educational support these kids will be missing.
Restarting our Full-Time Daily Youth Programs
SWB Uganda’s daily refugee programming is considered a part of the informal school sector, meaning our programs have been held to the same closures as Ugandan Schools. While we have been working with our youth in small groups throughout the pandemic, we have been barred from teaching our normal English literacy curriculum, as well as working with groups larger than 20.
With schools reopened, SWB Uganda is thrilled to reopen its full-schedule of refugee youth programming! We have been registering youth for the last 3 weeks and start our 2022 Season on January 31st with 300+ youth. We anticipate providing over 100,000 directly supervised youth programming hours during the upcoming 2022 year! Each registered youth will get 12 hours of weekly classroom instruction, 4-8 hours of on-field football-based learning, and 4 hours of Wasichana Hub programming (for girls only). We are also adding in youth recreation hours this year, including a debate club, a Soccer Tennis Club, a board games club and more!
The New SWB Uganda Refugee Youth Center
Not only is SWB Uganda reopening its classrooms, but we’re doing it in a new and improved Youth Center. In July, SWB moved its youth center 100 meters down the road to a bigger space, allowing us to engage more youth and provide more community support. The Center includes 4 large, open air classrooms, a community reading/media room, the SWB Uganda Office, a full garden for our Wasichana Hub Gardening Club, a recreation corner (which has been dominated by our Soccer Tennis Club of late), a dedicated girls changing room, and 6 brand-new latrines. Last week, our Youth Leadership Council went to work and put a fresh coat of paint on all of our new classrooms, tables and desks as well. We still have more work to do too. We are currently looking to raise more funds to build a brick-oven for our Girls Empowerment Program, a mini computer lab for our youth leaders, and a Girls changing room at the Community football pitch
We are officially opening the new space with a Back to Program party on the first day of classes! Stay tuned to our social media pages for highlights from the event.
SWB Youth Leadership Council
Another exciting new initiative at the SWB Uganda Refugee Youth Center is the SWB Youth Leadership Council. This collection of 16 SWB youth will help support our daily programming as referees, ast. Coaches, classroom monitors and community engagement officers. The group will also help guide programming outputs, with representatives participating in all formal staff meetings and staff working group meetings. We aim to provide as many leadership opportunities as possible, and make our program activities truly youth-informed and designed.
In December 2021, 8 members of this Council also participated in a FUFA Referree Course. All 8 of SWB’s youth passed their referee exams, earning their beginner license. This certifies them to referee youth games around the city, a great small-job opportunity for them. They will also get the opportunity to referee all youth matches at SWB Uganda, including at our Kampala Girls League and our quarterly Bondeko Gala series.
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