Ajibu Community Learning and Development Center

My name is Timothy, founder of Ajibu Community, a community-based organization in Uganda, my vision is to promote self-sustainable, educated, and empowered rural communities. To begin with, we are increasing access to quality education for vulnerable and unsupported children. As such, we are establishing a Learning and Development Center under our Community Schools Program in Luuka district, a rural community in Eastern Uganda.
In this community and many others, early childhood learning is very much ignored and usually not considered relevant by parents, they only wait until their children are 5 or 6 years when they enroll them direct into primary education. Children do not get to enjoy their early years because of the lack of a nurturing and stimulating environment for their wholesome development. It is a well-known fact that the quality of the environment in the early years plays a pivotal role in molding the personalities of the children for life. It is only in the early years that children can be nurtured to develop the required physical, emotional, cognitive and, 21st century skills - communication, collaboration, creative and critical thinking. One of the reasons for children not being in an early years’ setting is the lack of awareness among the parents about the significance of early years education. This is why it is important to change this narrative and perception about early learning and education in rural regions.Before the pandemic, Luuka district used to rank among the top 5 districts in the country with the poorest academic excellence and performance of children while recording the highest illiteracy and school dropout rates in the region. The outbreak of Covid-19 pushed the government to close all learning institutions for a period of two years, closing all doors of hope for many children’s education while throwing young girls into early marriages (parents thought this was a survival strategy!) resulting in teenage pregnancies and more school dropouts.

Ajibu Community has envisioned transforming the lives of these children, teenage girls and their families through practical solutions to overcome such challenges. We intend to establish community learning and development centers with resources and facilities to support early years education, primary education, skilling for out-of-school youth (especially girls and teenage mothers), and parenting sessions to increase parental involvement in early childhood learning programs of children.
This program will offer all-around learning support for community children ranging from ECD learning, literacy, digital learning, STEM learning and will also include a community library which shall be available to all children who want to improve their speaking, reading, and writing competencies. Through the same program, we shall also host community dialogues and literacy days in which we intend to sensitize parents on the importance of early childhood education, parenting sessions, and children's rights while offering them adult literacy/education sessions.

I am confident that this program will impact significantly to transform our communities as the team involved constitutes passionate, dedicated, and experienced international teachers with vast knowledge and world-class skillset needed for this project.

1. Renting or establishing a semi-permanent school structure
2. Furnishing and buying learning tools and school equipment
3. Facilitating recruitment, training, and allowances of local trainers
4. Catering for utilities at the center.