Educate 200 needy children in Uganda

REPORT ON RURAL CHILD EDUCATION

WESTNILE SUBREGION

ZOMBO DISTRICT

23/JAN/2026

Zombo District is grappling with significant education challenges that hinder the learning experience for many students. The primary school completion rate stands at a mere 37%, with only 27% of girls completing their education. This alarming statistic is exacerbated by high teenage pregnancy rates, poverty, and cross-border elopement to the DR Congo, which are major contributors to school dropouts.

Key Education Issues in Zombo District include:

- Low Completion & Dropouts: Only 27% of girls who enroll in Primary One manage to finish Primary Seven. The district recorded over 7,000 cases of teenage pregnancies between 2023-2024, severely affecting school attendance.

- Infrastructure Deficit: Zombo District faces a shortage of over 580 classrooms and 600 latrine stances. This lack of infrastructure forces many pupils to learn under trees or in temporary structures.

- School Environment: Four sub-counties do not have secondary schools, and teacher motivation is low due to inadequate facilities, including a lack of staff accommodation.

Addressing these challenges is crucial for improving educational outcomes in Zombo District. These highlight the urgent need for targeted, place-based, and technology-driven interventions to promote equity in education. Addressing these challenges is essential for ensuring that all students have the opportunity to succeed.

Our next steps focus on enhancing rural child education through community-led intervention strategies.

Key actions Steps for the next quarter:

- Engaging local government and rural community leaders to prioritize education.

- Implementing child follow-up initiatives and ensuring regular, meaningful school supervision to monitor teacher attendance and review learners' performance.

- Providing scholastic materials and educational support to underprivileged children.

- Advocating for community bylaws that promote the education of children.

SUCCESS STORY.

*Sharon Akwia*(Not real name) Success Story from Akwia,15year old girl  who enrolled in School.

Sharon Akwia, a 15-year-old girl, shares her inspiring journey. At just 13, she completed primary school but faced a heartbreaking challenge when she lost her father during the long holiday after P.7. Life became difficult, and despite achieving good grades, she was unable to join secondary school.

 As a single mother, Sharon's mother struggled to provide for her and her three siblings, who were enrolled in government-aided schools. Sharon admired her peers as they discussed their new learning experiences, environments, and friendships, wishing for the same opportunities.

 After patiently waiting for a year, at the age of 14, Sharon learned about Hope Vineyard Foundation Uganda through a community leader. They assessed her situation and found her eligible for support. The following year, she was enrolled in school with their assistance. Additionally, the foundation empowered her mother through a village savings group, helping to boost her income and provide for their basic needs.

 This support has been life-changing for Sharon and her household. She expresses her gratitude to the donors of Hope Vineyard Foundation Uganda for making this opportunity possible.

Executive Summary:

While there is a growing commitment from the government and the civil society Organization, significant challenges remain in achieving truly equitable education systems in Zombo district and other parts of Uganda, particularly for those with vision and hearing impairment, other forms of disabilities, those from marginalized backgrounds, are still being excluded from school or fail to progress through the education system. This falls below the definition of Inclusion as per the key Report on Inclusive education by UNESCO’S Global Education Monitoring (GEM) and World Bank, defining inclusion as ensuring all learners feel valued, respected and have sense of belonging in a learning environment that adapts to their needs.

 Introduction: Despite numerous efforts and innovations in place by actors to bring about inclusive and equitable education in Zombo district (Uganda),exclusion by the local community has been significantly due to persistency in legal gap, intersectionality of disadvantages, compounded by intersecting factors like Climate change crisis, ,poverty,disability,ethnicity, fragmentation of social responsibilities leaving girl child with less powers compared to boys, gender inequality and socio-economic exclusion. Our project aim is to use a community based approach in holistically empowering the community through socio-economic empowerment training programs, child education sponsorship, and challenge harmful gender norms, promote laws and policies on inclusion

Our project Aim, Goal and Objectives is to;

Adequately engage the rural community on Inclusive education which solely requires support from parents, local groups, and community leaders. Without active engagement, initiatives often lack crucial support and local knowledge.

• Advocate for accessible infrastructure: Many schools lack basic accessibility features such as ramps, elevators, and accessible toilets, making physical access difficult for students with mobility issues.

Close the Persistent legal gaps by pushing for and promoting laws and policies to ensure full inclusion in education, and challenge policies that allow for the segregation of students with disabilities.

• Mobilize sufficient resources and funding to cover the costs of: Shortages of assistive technologies, specialized materials, and support staff that hamper the effective implementation of inclusive practices.
• Advocate for and support adequate teachers training: This empowers educators with skills as a mean of preparation to teach diverse student groups effectively, including those with special needs. They often report feeling overwhelmed and unsupported.
• Provide mindset change community trainings to combat attitudinal barriers like Stereotypes, prejudices, and misconceptions about disabilities and diverse backgrounds persist among teachers, students, and parents, leading to discrimination and exclusion.

 Activities and Progress: Through funds from GlobalGiving, individual donors and the local communities support, we employed several strategies for overcoming barriers to inclusive education, including:

• Helping the rural communities through trainings to fully understand and adapt to the comprehensive government already developed explicit legal frameworks and policies that mandate full inclusion for all learners, moving beyond a narrow focus on disability. In this we engaged the lower local councils one (LC1) chairpersons and 01 Female representative from 12 selected villages where 24 people attended.
• Investing in systemic change: This includes strengthening education systems, reforming curricula, and reconfiguring physical and social school structures to welcome diversity of learners.in this, we collaboratively shared knowledge with local school construction engineers, advising on school physical infrastructure and planning.
• Prioritizing teachers training: Collaborating with other civil society organizations to provide teachers with ongoing training, skills, and classroom support to implement inclusive teaching methods which are crucial in enhancing equitable and inclusive education.
• Improving data collection: Collecting and using better disaggregated data is necessary to develop evidence-based policies and effectively monitor progress, in this, we were able to do 02 random baseline surveys on inclusion in parishes in Jangokoro Sub County.
• Fostering collaboration: Encouraging cooperation among staff, parents, community members which is essential for creating a supportive and inclusive learning environment, we did this by;

a)       visiting congregations in 5 churches and 2 mosques,

b)       Conducting two joint teachers, parents and learners meetings in 02 randomly selected schools.

• Increasing funding: Setting out 02 physical events fundraising through creating donor boxes stations to boost our finance goal needed to provide the resources and facilities required for inclusive education. 

 Financial: Summary of Financial expenditure and how funds were used.

a)       7 Visits to 7 places of worship =$40(140,000Ugx)

b)       02 Joint parents, teachers, and learners meeting solidarity meeting=142.86(500,000Ugx)

c)       02 Random surveys on inclusion in 2 parishes=$171.42(600,000Ugx)

d)       02 Lower local Council one(LC1) policy meetings $148.57(520,000Ugx)

Total=$502.86(1,760,000Ugx)

Challenges:

a)       Limited funding, impeding our roles in engaging other local government officials and policy makers, and policy implementation bodies on inclusive education.

b)       Small donor base

Outcomes and Impact:

a)       The two (02) Lower local Councils One (LC1) Policy advocacy meeting increased the knowledge of legal framework and policies on equitable and inclusive education

b)       The two (02) joint parents, teachers and learner’s solidarity meeting greatly contributed to breaking attitudinal barriers like Stereotypes, prejudices, and misconceptions about disabilities and diverse backgrounds persist among teachers, students, and parents, leading to discrimination and exclusion.

c)       The meaningful engagement of community groups and parents and teachers has given the project a crucial support and local knowledge on inclusive education, a great boost to the project.

d)       The two (02) Random community surveillance conducted on inclusive education from 2 parishes, was liable evidence presented to the lower local councils which increased community evidence-based policy advocacy levels and effectively monitoring progress for inclusion in education.

e)       The two physical events fundraising to build our financial muscle to enhance inclusion

f)        The encounter with the local school building engineers on infrastructure planning for diverse learning acts as a systemic approach to inclusion in education.

Acirochan,s Story:

• "When I got pregnant after Primary Five(P.5),the entire community looked at me as a girl with deferred hope and messed up future, truly I lost hope and self-worth and the world was upside down for me, full of self-condemnation because everyone including my mates and parents dissociated themselves from me, earmarked me  as a bad example and could recite this to other children who are at faults, this was a hard time for me, Fortunately, Amidst confusion and rejection, I delivered my baby normally despite the state of depression I found myself in.before my heart and mind could recover from the past trauma, another heartbreaking news was when one of my siblings whispered to me that my parents had secretly initiated a discussion with the parents of the boy, negotiating to marry me off in a traditional marriage, something against my will, this really broke me into pieces where I could not gather my broken piece anymore.Thankfully,a friend shared my story with Hope Vineyard Foundation Uganda ,which sent a member up to my parents’ home and sat us down for an insightful discussion and my voice was amplified, the marriage plan was called off, I was given serious counseling and other supports to help me recover from all the trauma  I went through, and now Iam in school again, Thank you to HVF-UG staff and donors who support the life transforming work of this organization, my story was changed just in the blink of an eye"
• "Choose compassion over Condemnation"

Prepared By: Acan Jolly                                                                         Approved By: Otingcwinyu Godfred.   Designation: Program Manager                                                           Designation: Executive Director

                                                                                                                          Date: 24^th/Sep/2025