About the Program

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  Program Details

  In 2006 the Schools for Schools (S4S) program emerged from Invisible Children’s overarching goal to raise the standards of secondary education in northern Uganda. The projects under the umbrella of Schools for Schools encourage academic excellence not only in students and teachers, but also within schools as a whole.

  Background

  In 1997, Uganda introduced the “millennium goal” of “Universal Primary Education.” In other words, the Ugandan government started paying for primary school. At that point, many organizations began to focus their efforts solely on assisting primary schools. The lack of attention given to secondary schools has made the pursuit of higher education even more difficult for students and teachers. Invisible Children Uganda’s local leadership recognized this gap and was determined to help reconstruct existing government-registered secondary schools across the districts of Gulu, Amuru, Nwoya, and Pader in northern Uganda.

  How it works

  The Schools for Schools program uses grassroots principles, engaging community involvement on all decisions concerning how funds are spent at each of our 11 partner schools. Through pre-existing and locally facilitated School Development Committees, those benefiting directly from the implementation projects—students, teachers, parents, members of the administration and the Board of Governors, as well as local government officials—sit and discuss what they feel a school needs most to improve its teaching and learning environment.

  One of the most important decisions Invisible Children Uganda ever made was deciding which Ugandan secondary schools to partner with. After developing extensive selection criteria, 11 existing institutions that showed potential for change and improvement were chosen. Four of the 11 schools served populations that had been displaced by the LRA conflict for years, with one school, Awere, serving a population that had been displaced for a decade and a half. Through the establishment of essential infrastructure, the Schools for Schools program has helped each of these four institutions return to their original school sites.

  Schools for Schools classifies its work into two specific areas of implementation:

  1. Engineering
  2. Education

  Our engineering projects focus on building and renovating physical structures like classrooms, water systems, administrative buildings, dorms, science labs, and libraries. Education projects, in contrast, focus on initiatives that strengthen the non-physical educational climate inside a school such as teacher and administrator training, capacity building, or sports and curriculum development.

  Program Statistics:

  $7,306,980 has been invested in 216 school infrastructure projects at 11 partner schools currently benefiting 9,300 students

  • 42 New classrooms
  • 17 Refurbished classrooms
  • 5 New boreholes
  • 4 Refurbished boreholes
  • 4 Motorized Water Systems installed
  • 128 New latrine stances
  • 4  New girl dormitories
  • 5  New science laboratories
  • 4 New generators
  • 1  New fully-furnished computer laboratory
  • 2  Libraries (1 new and 1 refurbished)

  Innovative Implementation

  The Schools for Schools program values innovative implementation – finding sustainable and creative solutions to issues facing our partner schools.

  Our engineering projects include the construction of Eco-San Latrines at our partner schools, which take an environmentally friendly approach to sanitation, turning solid waste into field-ready fertilizer—a recyclable, valuable resource. By putting rainwater harvesting technology to use at our partner schools we ensure that the school communities have a sufficient and stable supply of safe water through a simple series of pipes, pumps, and water tanks.

  Curriculum development, career guidance, and writing competitions are all education initiatives implemented at our partner schools through Schools for Schools. Knowledge of Behavior and Self (KOBS) is a two-year curriculum that aims to help students become more emotionally literate. An additional curriculum, Read Engage and Discover (READ), is implemented with the aim of improving school reading culture in northern Uganda.

  

  The Schools for Schools team hands over a refurbished teacher’s house at Sir Samuel Baker School to the school staff. The house had been unoccupied and fallen into disrepair during the LRA conflict. Now it will provide teachers with a home on the school property so that they can better serve their students.

  

  Richard, a Schools for Schools site supervisor, poses in the multipurpose hall that is being constructed at Gulu Secondary School.

  

  The balcony of the new multipurpose hall being built at Gulu Secondary School. The beautiful building will provide space for school assemblies, a library, and an auditorium that can be rented out to the community to generate income for the school.

  

  Amy Barbour is an American student who raised funds with her school to build a computer lab at Anaka Secondary School. In July 2012, she was able to visit the new lab and meet the students who are now able to learn computer skills that will make them competitive in the job market.

  

  Elizabeth is an English teacher at Sir Samuel Baker School. She traveled to a San Francisco school in 2012 as part of the Reciprocal Teacher Exchange program and has since been able to implement new teaching techniques in her classroom in Uganda.

  

  Harriet is a teacher at Keyo Secondary School. She learned to use PowerPoint so that she could put together a presentation for her exchange classroom during the 2013 Reciprocal Teacher Exchange program. Schools for Schools conducted computer training for teachers at partner schools to help them become familiar with useful programs like PowerPoint, Microsoft Word, and internet research.

  

  At Sacred Heart School, construction is almost complete on this block of classrooms. The top two floors were built by Invisible Children Uganda and will provide the school with twelve beautiful classrooms.

  

  Opiyo Samuel, a teacher at Anaka Secondary School, shows off the lab where he teaches computer skills to students.

  

  The Schools for Schools program holds regular review meetings in a range of subjects with the teachers at partner schools. For example, chemistry teachers were able to learn about new developments in the field and get new ideas for teaching the subject.

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