Help Children with Learning Difficulties in Uganda

Hello to you!

Of course we have to wish you the obvious for a moment: happiest holidays! We hope you are reading this with a cup of hot chocolate or a cool drink in your hand, depending on where you are at the moment. Are you still working the final stretch of the year, or are you enjoying a well-deserved rest? At Backup Uganda, we have closed our office doors for a few weeks so that our team can relax and celebrate, but we still wanted to give you a quick update of our last few months of 2023.

To start with, did you know that we organized the very first Dyslexia Awareness Day in October? As you might know, dyslexia is a learning disability that shows in challenges with reading, writing and other related skills. It is quite common all over the world, but that does not mean everyone knows about it yet. On 13th October at the Centre for Lifelong Learning in Kakiri, together with our colleagues from other organizations, we brought together parents, teachers and everyone else who was interested to learn more and advocate for better inclusion. It was even shared on national news stations! Check it out here: https://youtu.be/wp9DrGpQC_Q?si=j9OWxQ2BaL8uPQGy

By now, our partner schools may have closed for the end-of-year holidays, but not before we completed several final activities with them - including a rather successful parents meeting at Wilul Primary School! Since we started our partnership with the 3 latest schools a little later in the year, we still have a few final workshops and other sessions pending, but we will be able to complete these in term 1 of 2024. We also had the opportunity to bring one of Gulu District’s Inspectors of Schools along to an ODII session about AD(H)D at Ajulu Primary School - a beautiful way to strengthen our relationship with the Gulu District Education Office.

Another highlight of the past months: 2 successful Backup On Tour workshops on behavioral difficulties! With nearly 30 participants in total, we had a great time sharing more about the complexities of behavior and practical strategies to address it when you need to. Thanks to guest trainer & occupational therapist Imelda, we all learned more about sensory imbalances - including our team!

And then, before we knew it, Giving Tuesday had arrived. Thanks to you, we greatly benefitted from GlobalGiving’s incentive fund, raising $1,205 in total! Remember how we are trying to raise $2,500 before the end of 2023 to reach at least 2,000 children & parents with information about learning difficulties & disabilities in 2024? We’re almost halfway to our goal already! If you missed the chance to give on Giving Tuesday, please know that your contribution is still very much welcome.

That’s it for this year, dear friend! May you make beautiful memories during this season that will carry you right into the new year. See you in 2024!

Much love,

The Backup Uganda Team

Links:

• Dyslexia Awareness Day

Hello dear friend!

September?! Yes, September! Trust us, we are just about as surprised as you are by how fast this year is running. Our last update was from during the first school holiday of the year, and guess what… Right now, we are already a week into holiday number 2! In Uganda, that means the final school term of the year will begin later this month, which will end when December arrives. Did we not just start the new school year…?

Our new partner schools are right on track with the training program we are doing together. By now, they have already completed 4 workshops each, regular lesson observations, learning & evaluation meetings, and finally the first parents meeting. We have always enjoyed the good relationship we manage to build with each partner school. However, since we started offering space for schools to apply to join instead of asking the local education office to select them, we are experiencing an even greater commitment from school leadership teams in particular to complete the training program successfully. Here’s to excellent leaders investing time in growth!

Now that it’s holiday time, we dedicate a lot of our time to training for partner organizations. Did you know we added 2 new partners this year? And that we are kicking off our collaboration with both this month? In the second half of September, we will be traveling to Jinja and Buikwe respectively, to share our training content with the St. Moses Children’s Care Centre and International Needs Uganda. We are currently drafting detailed training outlines and we couldn’t be more excited about the content we will be covering together.

Oh, right! Immediately when September ends and the schools have reopened, we will be inviting professionals and parents to join us for the final round of Backup On Tour for this year. The topic: behavioral difficulties. The locations: Gulu and Kampala. It looks like we will have a special guest trainer on our team this time, so if this sounds interesting to you, please keep an eye on our social media pages.

The last of many exciting September moments: GlobalGiving’s next Little by Little campaign is coming up! From 18-22 September, your donation will be matched with 50% of the donated amount up to $50. We definitely have experienced the power of the crowd before, so we hope we can count on you this time as well, as we raise funds to complete all planned activities with our partner schools for 2023. Our favorite part? If you sign up to become a monthly donor during the Little by Little week, your donation will actually be matched with a whole 150%. Wouldn’t that be the perfect time to set up your regular donation?

Here you go, now you are up to speed on all things Backup. As always, we are grateful to have you on board, and we are always happy to connect with you. Drop us an email or a message some time…?

Much love,

The Backup Uganda Team