RisingStar Nursery and Primary School

Objectives

The Uganda initiative will have two main objectives:

HELP RISING STARS

Change Maker

Help Rising Stars has identified a forceful change maker living and working in the Nsambya neighborhood of Kampala, Peter Okware. Peter will lead and coordinate the implementation of our projects in the area. Please let us present our changemaker:

Peter, our Ugandan changemaker

Peter was born in 1988 by two unprivileged parents in the Nsambya slums of Kampala, the third child out of seven siblings. Since his parents could not afford nurturing all their children, at the age of five Peter was sent to live with his grandparents in the east of Uganda.

After finalizing Primary school Peter´s parents decided to invest in Peter sending him to a high quality Secondary school while his siblings could only attend the cheapest schools or no school at all. They wanted Peter to learn by mixing with more privileged children, expecting Peter to help his siblings once he had grown up. Their intention was more than fulfilled since Peter has embarked on a journey to improve the life not only of his siblings but also of the children in the whole Nsambya slum area in Kampala.

Peter has by himself realized two impressive achievements:

  • After organizing two community clean-up actions he rented some very rudimentary installations and started a Nursery and Primary school in the Nsambya slum area in 2014. The school now has six classes from Baby Nursery class to the third year in Primary school. The school has gained a very good reputation in the neighborhood. Peter has also organized reading, writing and English courses to mothers of the children, and also courses on how to start and manage small businesses. However, the installations of the school are poor and do not offer a good learning environment, support is needed to build adequate installations.
  • In parallel Peter has developed a training program for teachers, running workshops for schools in various parts of Uganda. The program has been recognized and is supported by the Ministry of Education. The program has a lot of potential but needs support to achieve a more extensive deployment in the country.

Peter is driven by two major convictions:

  • The quality of teaching in Uganda has to improve and the teachers must take pride in their profession.
  • Children from poor families need support to improve confidence in themselves.

“It must all start by improving the quality of teaching. With the exponential population growth in Uganda the country has not been able to keep pace and educate enough teachers and the children are suffering the consequences. My training program for teachers aims at providing teaching techniques for reading and writing although we also stress the importance of creating socially responsible children, covering issues like respect, gender equality, environment protection and much more. One of our main objectives is also to make teachers feel proud of their profession, today they are unfortunately placed very low on the social scale of the Ugandan society”.

we need to make them gain confidence

“Children from poor families generally have a low self-esteem, we need to make them gain confidence. When my parents sent me to a Secondary school with children from more privileged families and when I realized that I was just as competent and able as they were, I became much more confident in myself. That has been very useful to me in life. My confidence helps me to take initiatives to realize my dreams and ambitions.”

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