Inspiring Perspectives supports charity in Uganda
My colleague at the Education Centre
In 2006, my former colleague Nicky and I went to Bujagali Falls, Uganda, to help build up Soft Power’s Amagezi Education Centre. Together with local Ugandan teachers, we carried out workshops on how to make teaching fun and interactive. I am deliberately saying “together” and “workshops”, because we were originally supposed to “teach” them how to use our learner-centred techniques. However, our Ugandan colleagues soon started putting their own creative and inspiring ideas into practice. They were so open, inspired and keen to experiment that I have to admit that I learnt as much from them as they learnt from me!
I was also very impressed by the work of Hannah Small, a woman who made her dreams come true. Hannah, the founder of Soft Power Education, and her team set themselves a goal to renovate and refurbish 20 Government Primary Schools within five years… today, five years later, this goal has been exceeded by a long way. Soft Power Education has worked at 34 schools! Over 370 classrooms have been built/renovated or painted and over 33,000 children have benefited from this programme.
Training in an improvised classroom
You might ask yourself how Hannah and her team managed to build/refurbish 370 classrooms in five years? By harnessing the power of many tourists passing through the area! Soft Power Educations offers them the opportunity to help with the school refurbishment programme for just one day. Over 1000 people volunteer in this way each year. Many of these volunteers feel so inspired by their day that they come back to do more.
Hannah started with a dream and managed to build something extraordinary. The Amagezi Education Centre was one of Hannah’s dreams. She remembered that she learnt much more from first-hand learning experiences – such as excursions – than from listening to dull lectures. In the Amagezi Education Centre, Ugandan children have the opportunity to see the parasite that causes malaria through a microscope, for example. This is a very important learning experience in an area where many people believe that malaria comes from eating mangos in the rainy season. 1400 children from different schools in the area experience this unique learning environment and its hands-on learning techniques and later on spread their knowledge in their own schools and homes.
The village centre after the rain
In addition, through the Amagezi Education Centre, Soft Power also runs 14 Community Programmes in the school holidays providing access to information for the local community and allowing them to do better for themselves. Community Programmes run in tailoring, carpentry, building fuel efficient stoves, home ideology, agriculture, IT classes and much more
And it continues. Just last year Soft Power Education embarked on a brand new project in the north western region of Murchison Falls National Park in Uganda. This area has been ravaged for a long time with vast numbers of animals being killed and the area also has one of the highest population growth rates in the world. This coupled with very little economic activity other than fishing has left the area very disadvantaged. Soft Power decided to step in and start by replicating the school refurbishment programme which has been so successful in the southern end of Uganda. They are also building a Conservation Education Centre to help demonstrate to the local population that tourism can be a great thing and there are plenty of opportunities within tourism for them to improve the quality of their lives. By doing this Soft Power Education will be promoting conservation of the National Park and the animals within it to encourage more tourism in the area and in turn to benefit the local community.
I believe that this is a cause that is worthwhile supporting. If you want to support Soft Power Education by booking a training course that is fully tailored to your needs, please send an email to nicole@inspiringperspectives.com and copy in sharon@softpowereducation.com. You can find more information about Soft Power Education on their website www.softpowereducation.com.
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