Help Children with Learning Difficulties in Uganda

Hello dear friends!

We are happy to connect with you today, during a time when the world is finally starting to look a little brighter. More and more public places are opening up, COVID-19 infection rates are dropping in many countries, and making plans for the future is slowly becoming easier. That said, we know this does not go for all of us - in Uganda, infections have been increasing rapidly over the past weeks, so as a team, we are doing our best to navigate yet another wave.

This is coming at a time when the final phase of school reopening is just about to begin. Since March 2020, learners in Primary 1, 2 and 3 have been home, so we are all looking forward to their return on 7th June. Whether this will happen or not will depend on further communication from Uganda’s president, which is expected any day now. All other classes have been able to complete a short version of their final school term of the year during the past few months. You can guess what that means: we have been BUSY.

With our masks on and our hands well-sanitized, our partner schools and primary teachers colleges have allowed us to resume our usual activities. This means we have been able to hold in-person workshops for teachers, administrators, student teachers and teacher educators - imagine our excitement! Our team was thrilled to be able to observe the student teachers during their teaching practice as well. We love seeing them experiment with the new skills they gained during our workshops, while we guide them along the way.

Speaking of workshops: Backup On Tour happened for the first time! We plan to take our sessions to different locations across Uganda, starting with the major cities. Of course, there was only one city we could start from: Gulu! Towards the end of May, we received managers, HR professionals, team leaders and professionals working with children for a half-day detailed introduction to learning difficulties & disabilities. All participants are now well-aware that conditions like these exist among children and adults, which means we all have to take steps to create more inclusive environments for learning and working. Next up: Jinja, Kampala & Mbarara!

Did you know that we have a creative side as well? On 20th May, we launched MOYA, Backup Uganda’s fundraising arm that offers fun products with an important message. We started off by selling T-shirts and if you are in Uganda, you can still order yours here at UGX 35,000 only. They will be available in the Netherlands and the USA soon!

That’s it for today, friends! Please keep us in your thoughts as we are trying to get through the (hopefully) last phases of the pandemic, while making sure that all (and we mean ALL) children can continue learning. We hope you continue to be safe and healthy.

Much love from Gulu,

The Backup Uganda Team

Links:

• Order your shirt today!

Hello there!

It is common in Uganda to wish everyone a happy new year the first time you meet them after the year has started, even when it is months later, so we are just going to do it:

Happy new year to you!!

We hope that your new year has taken off well, despite all circumstances currently, and that it is bringing you hope for the future. For our team, it sure did! Remember the fantastic end-of-year fundraiser towards buying a car for the organization? We may not have reached our goal yet, but we raised more during this campaign than we have before, and we’ll keep going until we get to 100%! Even better news: schools are slowly moving towards reopening. We spent the first month of 2021 preparing for this and working on a couple of new ideas that we want to bring to life this year. How about we update you real quick?

Primary 7 learners & teachers have returned to the classroom after their Christmas break, getting ready for their final examinations that will take place at the end of March. On 1st March, Primary 6 will be allowed to join as well! While we are still putting our teachers workshops on hold as it is hard to bring all of them together, our team is back to doing lesson observations on a regular basis. We are doing our best to guide the teachers through the changing situation and schedules while continuing to teach in an inclusive way. The long stretch of home learning has increased the differences in progress between learners, so we are assisting the teachers at our partner schools in dealing with this.

At the primary teachers colleges we work with, the student teachers in year 2 returned in October last year. From 1st March, the first-year students will come back as well, which means the PTCs will finally be complete again! While we already resumed our workshops with the tutors (= teacher educators) at one of the PTCs in December last year, this will give us a chance to be fully engaged in preparing the next generations of teachers once again. We just cannot wait!

Does that mean COVID-19 has finally left Uganda? Not quite, unfortunately. However, we are all learning to deal with the new ways of keeping ourselves and others safe, while keeping the work going as well as we can. Sometimes, that means having a socially distanced, sanitized and masked day of training with the new cohort of teaching fellows at Teach For Uganda. Other days, it means organizing a webinar for the speed school supervisors and coordinators at Geneva Global.

It also means coming up with entirely new strategies for our own programs, to make sure they can keep running under almost any circumstances. Guess what? We are turning our ‘usual’ training program for partner schools into a distance training program! Videos, work books, you name it & we have brainstormed about it. We will be launching this new approach within the next couple months, so keep an eye on our social media pages to be the first to know.

Speaking of which: Little by Little is coming up in March. From 8-12th, you have a chance to support the development of this distance approach, as GlobalGiving matches all donations up to $50 with 50%. We know this has been one of the most exciting recurring matching campaigns for you, so we would love to invite you to be part of it again this time. You can expect a more detailed update in your inbox soon.

That’s it for now! Thank you for taking the time to get up to speed on what is keeping us busy. Stay safe & healthy!

Much love from Gulu,

The Backup Uganda Team