Room to Learn - Education for Youth in South Sudan

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!