Uganda 2015

This year was our first year in Uganda. Uganda seemed a natural extension of our programming reach as it is located next to our other programs in the region. From the start the 4 EBB team members from Canada worked collaboratively with a strong stakeholder group in the host community of Kayunga. Once we arrived in Uganda, two Kenyan trainers joined the EBB team. After a very engaging needs assessment and visioning session with about 20 stakeholders, we visited some schools and prepared for the teacher workshops.

Teacher workshops:

The 4 Canadians and 2 Kenyans co-facilitated 3 days of workshops, one each for differentiated, collaborative and inquiry-based learning. In attendance were 95 teachers from the local district and 26 from two other districts about 7 hours drive away. The fact that there was full attendance for all three days and everything ran smoothly is a testament to the commitment and organization of the local stakeholder group and the teachers. After the workshops, we randomly visited various schools to observe workshop participants applying their newfound skills in the classroom. The immediate results were amazing. One example was of a Secondary English teacher who had his class of 85 students set up into about 16 groups of 6. On observation I had assumed that he had done this before, but when I interviewed him afterward, he told me that this was the first time. He was ecstatic at the results citing that he had students responding and presenting who had never spoken in his class before. We look forward to continuing our work here in the future.

We also continued our commitment to developing student leaders and improving student-teacher relations by conducting a one-day student leadership conference to 40 local head students.