Give the gift of education to a vulnerable child

CCUg has been sponsoring 2 students (boys) through the use of individual donations. Towards the end of 2022, we received a grant from The Waterloo Foundation to enable us to sponsor 12 more children, specifically girls at the Senior 3 level from Mayuge and Jinja Districts. Currently, we are sponsoring a total of 14 children in selected secondary schools in Mayuge and Jinja District.

Objective

To increase retention and opportunities for girls’ education.

Activities

• Twelve OVC parents and caregivers were trained in financial literacy for the two groups located in Mauta and Bugodi. These included 10 female and 2 male parents / caregivers.
• School fees for all 14 sponsored children were paid to their respective secondary schools in Mayuge and Jinja Districts.
• Monitoring of the 12 sponsored children was conducted in their homes. This monitoring aimed at assessing each student’s academic performance, health status, future educational f plans, caregiver’s support towards their child’s interests and whether the child is benefiting from the sponsorship.
• The OVC caregivers formed two savings groups known as Gemakumwino and Nalitisubira to support their savings goals and provide access to credit.
• A total of 9 OVC caregivers, 7 female and 1 male from Gemakwumwino and Mauta-Nalitisubira, were introduced to basic concepts of financial literacy, including setting financial goals, creating a budget, borrowing and also given a general introduction to business management.
• Eighteen vocational skilling students have been taught financial literacy in Wairasa and Ntinkalu respectively. Nine females in Wairasa have consistently attended the first 3 lessons, and. another nine female students in Ntinkalu have also consistently attended classes to the first 6 lessons. These lessons covered topics such as the definition, importance and components of financial literacy, setting financial goals, creating a budget, borrowing, introduction to business management, characteristics, finding business ideas, importance of businesses, challenges faced by businesses, possible solutions to the identified challenges and basic  management skills.

Highlights discovered during monitoring of six selected children

• All the 6 students said that they can now concentrate in class specifically in their academics since they are no longer chased from school for failure to pay school fees.
• All the students mentioned that their parents are supportive of their interests.
• Only one student mentioned that there were 4 new dependents in her household.
• Only one student had a serious illness of a household member during the quarter (grandmother).
• Among the 6 students, only one said that she was satisfied with her performance and the rest were not satisfied and wanted to achieve better academic progress.
• Some of the OVC caretakers didn’t have any business income at the time of the interview because they didn’t have capital to invest.

Challenges

• Limited resources are not enough to enable us to sponsor many children who need our support.
• Some parents were not at home for the meeting, so the staff members had to wait for them which consumed some time.
• Some of the parents / caregivers don’t have phones, which makes it difficult to reach them.

Recommendations

• Talk to the school administrators to help us understand the reports of the students better since there was a change in the way their results are presented.
• Encourage the children to use the available computers at school to do research since their parents can’t afford laptops / smart phones to help them with school-related research.

Lessons Learnt

• Parents’ support to the children enhances the learning of children.