The project, supported by the Schöck-Familien-Stiftung, builds on its predecessor “Nyumba Kumi – Education for Children in Times of Pandemic”. Here, learning groups were formed in various villages in Busia district to prepare and motivate children and young people to return to school (after two years of school closure). One of the main reasons for the absence from school is the low financial resources of parents. Therefore, in order to achieve a long-term solution and a holistic impact, parents were trained in various areas and supported in income generation. By the end of the project, the learning groups are largely functioning independently and parents are applying their income-generating skills. Nevertheless, feedback shows that school materials and extracurricular learning spaces are particularly lacking.
With this in mind, the participating communities proposed the follow-up project of mobile community libraries not only to consolidate the successes of the previous project, but also to pursue sustainable approaches to providing accessible, high-quality, and low-cost learning materials at the community level. The approach leverages the safe learning spaces already present in the educational groups structured and established by Somero Uganda and the lessons learned from the previous Nyumba Kumi project.
The mobile libraries are stationed with selected families after training, but are managed by a group of people. This ensures accessibility and the books can be used over several school years. The selected families are accompanied by social workers and volunteer teachers. Parents who are still interested in learning to read and write also have the opportunity to do so during times when the children are not there, so they can support their children as needed.
Due to the mining work and the great poverty, the people are permanently exposed to crises and hard labor. The leisure activities in the project offer the children a possibility of compensation and low-threshold, psychosocial support. As opposed to handing out materials to children once and paying school fees, the project aims to provide a sustainable solution and get to the root of the problem.
Project executing agency: Somero e.V.
Project partner: Somero Uganda, Kampala
Funding year: since 2023
Project no.: 166-22 G