Train 50 women teachers in Uganda to educate 1000s

Graduate Women International (GWI) is thankful to announce that, despite the COVID 19 pandemic, Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, is accepting new candidates for its Teachers for Rural Futures project. GWI new young women students for 2021 will come from the Lira District in northern Uganda. In years past, the region suffered massive population displacement from increased rebel violence. Now trying to recover from rebel invasion, Lira residence have returned to rebuild their lives and educate their girls. GWI is participating in the revival by accepting girls into the Teachers for Rural Futures programme

The region where the girls are from, like many in Uganda, has a shortage of women secondary school teachers. This discourages many adolescent girls from attending school.  Once graduated, these young women will go back to their rural community to teach and serve as women role models for other girls at critical stages of their lives. 

Thank you to all our donors who have supported this project! Individual donations provide funding for tuition and examinations, university accommodation, books, transport to and from home, living expenses and community engagement to raise continued support for girls’ education. 

More qualified women teachers mean 1000s more girls in rural communities can go to school. Your donantions help us continue this project! 

Dear Teachers for Rural Futures Supporters,

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to pose unprecedented challenges to the global community, GWI carries on working actively to further this crucial project with your generous support and puts all its efforts in safeguarding and promoting women and girls’ access to education in this unprecedented period.

Not since World War II have so many countries around the world seen schools and educational institutions go into lockdown at around the same time and for the same reason. The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic is forcing unprecedented school shutdowns worldwide, blocking some 1.6 billion learners at primary, secondary, and tertiary levels from the classroom.  Closures of schools and other centres of learning have impacted 94% of the world’s student population according to UNESCO. The COVID-19 pandemic has created the greatest disruption of education in modern history and exacerbated pre-existing disparities in education by reducing opportunities for many of the world’s most vulnerable populations to continue their education – those living in rural areas, girls, refugees, persons with disabilities and displaced persons.

In this context, and whilst we await more favourable conditions to start the new cycle of the Teachers for Rural Futures programme, GWI is putting all its efforts in calling attention on the urgent need to include women’s and girls’ higher education as a critical stake in the response to the current crisis. In September 2020, GWI addressed as statement to the United Nations Human Rights Council and the Commission on Social Development (2021), urging, Member States to  eliminate the technology gap in education globally such that best distance learning practices reach children and youth, especially girls and young women, who are most at risk.

Without concrete steps toward global, concerted action, words are at risk of falling empty. This is why GWI is currently building up the potential for action and impact of its 14 000 women-strong international network of members through the GWI International Advocacy Webinar Series, “Putting the pieces together and raising women's voices through strategic advocacy in the changing world”. The goal of the series is to increase our membership’s knowledge of GWI’s advocacy work and provide them with the key resources and tools to build their own, grassroot strategic advocacy plan on key, current issues affecting women and girls globally: gender-based violence and the challenges of remote learning.

We are also currently refining our plans to sponsor four new young women while following our five successfully graduated student teachers as they begin their professional careers, education champions and role-models for the younger generations of female students and aspiring teachers in their communities. The current global challenge has only delayed the start of this new cycle of the Teachers for Rural Futures Project and GWI remains united and committed to pursuing our mission, thanks to the generous donations to the GWI Teachers for Rural Futures project.

With appreciation,

Graduate Women International

Links:

• Graduate Women International Teachers for Rural Futures Report