Okay. Who wants to know about one of my projects I'm working on? Great. I will tell you. All of our projects are still in the preliminary phases, but Sam and I had a great meeting yesterday with the project that we are co-leading, and I'm super excited about it. So I will tell you what we know.
So, St Stephens is a secondary school in Buhkaweka that HELP started working with last year, mostly teaching classes. They also put on a teacher training workshop and a parent training workshop for the teachers and parents of St Stephens. The headmaster of the school is named Saleh, and he is amazing. He's just a really together guy who is so forward-thinking and really has a great vision for his school and his community. Really a great guy to work with.
The team is doing a lot of projects with Saleh and St Stephens, but the one that Sam and I are heading up has to do with the parents of the students; and women in Buhkaweka in general. Uganda has tons of problems that are all kind of intertwined with each other. The education system alone is full of issues, which I see as a base for a lot of other problems that the country has. Even deeper than the school system, the real root of the failings comes from the homes of these kids. Parents send their kids to school (sometimes), and that is the extent of their parenting. The kids get no support from their parents when they go home. They aren't given help with their schoolwork, they aren't encouraged to have big goals, often parents don't even communicate with their kids at all. These people have no money so their biggest goal is to get their kids out of the house and married to the chipati man down the road so that they are no longer responsible for keeping them fed and clothed. They don't encourage them to further their education or to work their way up to really great, higher-paying jobs because these ideas don't seem realistic to them and, in the short run, they cost a lot of money that the parents don't want to pay. Essentially, it's a continuous cycle of poverty. Everyone wants to find the quickest fix to their current hunger pangs or alcohol withdrawals so they end up living shilling by shilling and not making sustainable investments in their futures.
It's really a sad thing to witness. It's awful to me that these kids have absolutely no support from their families to make something of themselves. They are left to fend for themselves which eventually leads them to struggle just as much as their parents are now. Obviously, this is a huge issue, but our goal for this summer is to help this issue a little bit starting with the village of Buhkaweka.
Saleh has this dream to create a women's group in the community where women can come together and receive training on topics ranging from being better parents to health and sanitation practices to starting more successful and sustainable businesses. Sam and I are so excited about this idea and have decided to help Saleh get this started. We actually came up with the idea to start two different groups. One will be a general group for any women in the community to meet once a week and receive training. The other will be a group with a specific number of people that is focused on business. In the group we would establish a village savings and loans association (VSLA) and teach a business course. By the time the course is over, they women will be equipped with the knowledge that they need to start a successful business and will also be able to get a loan to start their business through the VSLA. Saleh loved this idea and told us about a lot of great ideas for businesses that women could start. He knows where the needs are in Buhkaweka and what kinds of goods there is a huge market for in the area that isn't currently being met. The ideas that he had seemed so simple but so genius. If we could share this information with the women, I have no doubt that they could really get their businesses to take off and put their family in a much better financial position.
This whole thing also turns into a cycle in that if the parents are able to make more money and develop a successful business, they will not only have more money to help send their kids to school, but might also see their kids' goals as being more of a possibility after they have seen so much of their own success. The kids would also learn by watching and helping with their parents' business, which could lead them to have higher goals and expectations for themselves. In addition, these parents would be receiving training about parenting and the importance of encouraging their kids to aim high and go to college, rather than just get married the second they are old enough. Besides goal setting and going to college, kids just simply do better in life if they have solid relationships with their parents, communicate with them constantly, and have their unconditional love and support.
Okay, that was a lot longer explanation than I was planning on giving, but I'm just so excited about this project. I think this is such an important thing to work on. We can teach the kids all we want, but if what we teach isn't being reinforced when they go home, nothing is going to come of it. It really takes a holistic approach to make a difference, and we really are doing that with St Stephens and the village of Buhkaweka. I'm so excited to get started. It's going to be good. I'll keep you posted!
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