Fellows' Newsletter: Impact Stories.

  My journey to improve the educational outcome of a low-income rural community’s public school, end education inequity and ensure that all children attain an equitable, quality and inclusive education began at Kikalu Primary School in Namutumba District as a fellow in the Teach for Uganda’s Teaching as Leadership Fellowship Program. My first priority was to understand my new area of abode. Community visits, stakeholder engagement and interactions with political leaders was fundamental in understanding my community in terms of their beliefs, cultural practices and attitude toward education. It was baffling to know that parents were incurious about education, a subject that impelled me to device strategies that would quickly change social perception by using my students as the messengers for positive feedback first by igniting their interest towards learning through play-based approach and using songs in my teaching that's aligned with the content to be delivered. Additionally, I ...

  The children I teach at Namulanda C/U primary school love learning and enjoy the lessons. I know this because of the excitement in their eyes and their vibrant tones. This did not come easy however. My first day at school was both an amazing moment and a saddening one at the same time, the headteacher was very welcoming and supportive. The saddening part was partly related to the inadequate structures which I observed during my orientation shortly upon my arrival by the headteacher, Mrs. Betty Sentamu. She introduced me to the staffs, my co-teacher and eventually my class. “ The competing voices in the hall during classes were very frustrating to me and distracting to the learners during lesson hours.... ” On my entry, I met the amazing learners stacked in a large hall with no boundaries or separation boards accommodating learners from primary one to primary five. The disorganized buzzes from the different groups in that gigantic room sent a cold shot down my spine. Unfortuna...

Teaching is an exciting experience if you are dealing with learners in good health but very trying if you have sickly ones. Serving in Uganda’s public school in a hard-to-reach area has been and still is a very exciting journey with all its challenges. The most outstanding challenge is the big number of sickly learners registered on a daily basis which of course is discouraging and hurtful to a teacher. When I had just been deployed in Kigandalo Primary School, it was all smiles and excitement to give back to God for how far He had brought me, and to the community as well. It was visible that classroom teacher, the children and their parents needed a hand. The frequent and numerous illnesses amongst my learners on a daily basis did not bother me much at first, I only pondered on how to catch them up with the contents taught in their absentia. “An infirmary should be the first place a learner gets first aid….” Fast forward to the first time I battled typhoid, its three phased at...