UGANDA PSA program

Reinforcement of social action with the Ugandan youth

 

 

Brief  history

For Unity Foundation this project is a first collaboration with «Kimanya-Ngeyo», Foundation for Science and Education.

Description of the existing situation

Considering the data collected by the local partner and the analyses done,  the actual educational offer existing in Uganda does not fulfill all  requests. This is true for the number of years accessible to students, as for the quality of education. During the last few years, the Ugandan Government tried to improve access to primary education and – more recently – to high school level. In spite of the fact that 20% of public income is invested into education, the young people from the rural areas encounter problems in getting quality education which would enable them to get implied efficiently in their communities. Uganda introduced Universal Secondary Education (ESU) in 2007, but because of serious budgetary constraints, professional and technical schools got excluded for the moment and will be considered only later. Moreover, the former budget of ESU intended to include about 300.000 students. This would require a financial investment Uganda does not have and therefore – at this stage – only 150.000 students, who succeeded their primary school, do have access to ESU (Source: UNESCO 02/2007).

The young people are badly prepared to contribute constructively to the life of their communities or to start job creation. Therefore  they often choose to move to the big cities hoping to find a better future there. As a matter of fact, this rural migration of young people increases the number of slums in urban areas as those areas do not offer the social network provided by village communities and furthermore there is no possibility of cultivating land to supply to individual needs.

Project description

The Kimanya-Ngeyo Foundation initiates the PSA  program (Preparation of Social Action) to fight the major lack of education in Uganda. This program is especially dedicated to young people between 15 and 25 years who finished their primary studies or even a few years of high school and come from a rural environment. The studies include sciences, mathematics, languages, technology and social activities. The main topic is to transmit to young people a complete package of knowledge, qualifications, capacities and positive attitudes which will enable them to contribute to a positive change within their communities. This program is based on an over 30 years old experiment started and carried out in Colombia by FUNDAEC. It  gives young people the opportunity to get a vision of development for the rural areas and put their visions into practice giving them as well the necessary tools to start by their own. As for Colombia, Uganda may, by this way, reduce sensitively rural migration of young people.

The training centre, in addition to being a place of education, will be a centre of social action where individuals and groups can develop and put into practice solutions to local problems. This way, they won’t have to import knowledge or techniques from abroad which are often not suitable to the local context. For instance, the center intends to test techniques improving agricultural results, local construction materials or medicinal herbs available in the country and responding to the needs expressed by the local population. The training in sciences is directed towards a better knowledge of agriculture. The acquired knowledge is put into practice showing the participants of the program that thanks to the application of new technologies, their harvest can be improved. Service to community leads directly to environmental action, to the transmission of primary health information and to a better education for young kids. The program is also open to young women and mother-girls who, because of the flexibility of the training schedules, get the possibility to attend without neglecting their family responsibilities.

The project also includes training for Kindergarten teachers for the students who got their PSA diploma. This way these people will be able to contribute even more to the improvement of their local communities.

Duration of project:  2009 - 2011

Link: to the pictures of this project

Budget 
 

Institutiton	Year 1	Year 2	Year 3	Total €
MAE	46.024	71.493	73.246	190.763
UF	23.012	35.746	36.623	95.381
TOTAL	69.036	107.239	109.869	286.144