Room to Learn - Education for Youth in South Sudan

Following the completion of community entry in Room to Learn (RtL) South Sudan’s first school communities, the project has begun to award the first round of instructional material grants to schools. The schools in South Sudan have been devastated by years of war and conflict. They suffer from limited physical infrastructure, resources and human capacity. RtL’s instructional materials grants are the first grant package that school communities are able to apply for following the completion of their school development plan (SDP) during community entry. The instructional materials grants are designed to address the lack of basic teaching resources available to schools in South Sudan.

The standard instructional materials grant package includes: portable blackboards, flash boards, small slate chalk boards, learning aids for teachers, lesson planners for teachers, storage cabinet, supplementary readers; and learning games. Also included in the package are basic stationery items to help teachers engage children in the classroom, such as: chalk, pens, paper, rulers, glue, scissors, markers, and other items. RtL has already awarded 46 instructional materials grants and aims to award 369 by the end of 2015. Schools that receive an instructional materials grants package will also be able to apply for additional grants to address other needs they identified in their SDPs and teachers will also be able to receive additional training.

These grants provide a start for RtL school communities to improve and create safer school environments for their children. On behalf of Winrock and our partners, we thank donors for their generous support. Your commitment enables us to have a bigger impact on each school community we enter in the coming months!

At the start of the 2015 school year, Room to Learn (RtL) South Sudan entered school communities for the first time in three states and four counties. Using a community-based approach, RtL county teams work with community members to identify their own human and material resources, networks, and past experiences that can be put to use to support education. The process involves many stakeholders including teachers, parents, government officials, religious leaders, youth, women’s groups, entrepreneurs, and civil society organizations. Communities are engaged to actively understand how safe and effective their school is so that they can plan and implement steps to improve school safety through the creation or updating of the School Development Plan.

The result of this approach is that community members are empowered to mobilize resources at their disposal to improve school conditions as well as identify gaps that RtL can help address through its grant mechanism.

“This process can be applied not only to the school. It can be applied in our houses so we appreciate the resources we have and use them properly”, said one community member. Over the life of the project, Room to Learn anticipates it will reach over 500 schools and 300,000 children through direct services aimed at improving access, retention, quality, safety and relevance of instruction across South Sudan. On behalf of Winrock and our partners, we thank donors for their generous support. Your commitment is invaluable as we move ahead with work in school communities!