Restore hope - Support & educate a girl in Uganda

We have exciting news!

Over the past three months FICH has been working closely with beneficiairies, teachers, and others in the community in order to understand how our education program could support them better. We learned that while our approach to mentoring is unique and impactful, it had room for improvement. This led to many team discussions, a lot of planning, and finally a new and improved youth education program called LEAD: Leadership, Excellence, Advancement, Discovery.

LEAD still targets girls in secondary schools in Northern Uganda. In fact, our beneficiaires will remain the same; only the approach will change. The purpose of the program is to inspire girls to become leaders in their community and perform well in school through weekly mentorship sessions facilitated by FICH team members and Mentor Teachers. Weekly sessions are interactive, informational, and help girls to discover more about themselves and their dreams. We believe that through regular, positive interaction we can help girls to become leaders, to be excellent students and community members, to advance themselves personally and professionally, and to discover more about themselves and the world.

Our approach focuses on four key strategies:

1. Positive Youth Engagement: This approach is fundamental to working with youth. It focuses on youths’ strengths and opportunities for development rather than on things youth do wrong or issues that need to be solved. PYD focuses on surrounding youth with positive experiences, education, opportunities, and relationships that support their development

2. Asset Based Approach: An asset-based approach focuses on developing youth’s “assets,” or positive experiences and qualities that are proven to influence youth development. This approach applies a framework of 40 developmental assets to measure youth’s well-being and likelihood of success

3. Continual learning: Skill-building relies on allowing youth to continually build on the knowledge and skills being developed. Sessions will be linked to an underlying theme in order to support the continual learning process.

4. Safety: The safety of youth participants is paramount. Youths' phsycial and emotional safety is neccessary for personal growth and success. All adults and youth involved will be made aware of their individual responsibility to promote safety. 

Stay tuned for more exciting news as the third school term of 2018 begins and to see the winners of our Term 3 Business Pitch Competition!