Department of Education.
Tel: / +256 772 844 459 /+256 772 854 991/+ 256-701-929754.E-mail / /
Project Duration. / One Year.
Project Start Date: / September 2012.
Project End Date: / August 2013.
Amount requested from Donor(s) in $ / 71,500 USD.
Total amount of funding in $ / 76,000 USD.
Shine Africa Ministries in-kind Contribution / 4,500 USD.
BANKING /FINANCIAL AND ACCOUNTABILITY DETAILS:
NAME AND ADDRESS OF BANK : DEUTSCHE BANK TRUST NEW YORK NYNAME OF BANK / STANBIC BANK UGANDA (BIC: SBICUGKX)
BRANCH / SOROTI
SWIFT ADDRESS / BKTRUS33.
ABA / 021001033.
DOLLAR ACCOUNT NUMBER: / 04096521.
BENEFICIARY NAME: / SHINE AFRICA MINISTRIES (SAM).
ACCOUNT NUMBER: / 0140525203401.
CONTACT INFORMATION:
Responsible Person(Authorized to commit the Organisation)
Full Names / Okwalinga Paul (An Accounting Officer for this Project).
Function within the Organisation / Executive Director.
Telephone Number / +256 772 844 459.
Contact Person II.
Full Names / Anguria Michael
Job Title / Program Coordinator.
Tel. / +256-701-929754.
Contact Person III.
Full Names / Akurut Grace.
Job Title / Special Education Officer.
Tel. / +256-772-854991.
Brief Background of the Implementing Organization:
Shine Africa Ministries (SAM) is a faith Based Indigenous Voluntary independent non-profit NGO established in 2006 by a group of six youth, two women and two pastors who felt compelled to respond to the needs of women, Disabled persons, OVC’s, Youth, elderly and all at risk vulnerable populations / groups experiencing Chronic Poverty, illiteracy, Gross Human Rights abuses, Associated Reproductive Health Problems, disease, hunger, unemployment, and domestic violence in the hub of Teso Sub-Region.
Due to the above challenges , the organisation was registered as a legal entity with Registrar of companies in 2009 with Reg. No. 107753 and registered with the NGO board in 2011 with Reg .NO 8186 to offer social services and empowering all the vulnerable groups in order to bring a Holistic Development in them.
To date, SAM’s programs are targeted and reach vulnerable families and communities in the Teso and Karamoja Sub-Regions, the principal focus areas of our projects are in; Public Health, Education, Agriculture, Good Governance and Human Rights, Evangelism, Information and IT Computer Technology and Advocacy, Monitoring, Evaluation and Research.
Our Vision is to have a society in which the local population is empowered to equitable access to the whole spectrum of quality social services and our Mission Is to work in a holistic manner towards improvement in the quality of life through interventions that reduce vulnerability to illiteracy, ignorance, poverty, disease, hunger, gross abuse of human rights while healing many lost souls through gospel propagation.
Our ultimate goal is to focus on improving the quality of health services and practices, concentrating on addressing the root causes of illiteracy/ignorance among children and adults ,poverty and Gender Based Violence in the households and communities ,promoting equality and equity , good governace, democracy, accountability and transparency, peace building , civic education awareness, socio-economic empowerment of rural communities and improvement of the standards of living among all the vulnerable and marginalized groups through provision of income generating activities and Livelihood projects, while notably to deepen the Gospel Propagation of Jesus Christ and engagement of the entire segments of the population and stakeholders to ensure the promotion and protection of the inherent fundamental human rights.
SAM is a fully grass root based membership organization owned by members that are drawn from active youth, women and men that are organized in production groups.
Currently, SAM has a membership of 1,749 men ,women and youth of whom 1,031 (59%) are female, The Organizations leadership is provided by Boards of Directors consisting of nine (09) elected officials through a farmer’s council/ Annual General Assembly and four of the board members are women, their main responsibility is to provide stewardship and policy direction for the organization. The organizations day to day operations are managed by a team of four (7) technical people headed by the Programme Coordinators.
Previous work/past experience related to Literacy Programs:
Shine Africa Ministries has been since 2009 to-date implementing education programs; formal and non –formal education (Life Planning Skills Education).Since 2009 to-date the organisation has supported a total of 50 street children with life planning skills programs like games and sports , arts and crafts, colouring , reading books and stories, one-on-one counselling/mentoring, 150 disadvantaged children such as; OVC’s ,disabled ,abandoned and neglected children were supported with all holistic and comprehensive scholastic education support materials such as school uniforms, stationary, school shoes, school bags, Medicare services, and contributing to OVC’s school feeding program.
Also access to care and support for children and OVC’s families infected by HIV and AIDS through timely referrals and the establishment of livelihood projects such as Bakeries, SACCO’s, Goat Rearing ,Cassava growing for income generation and sustainability.
The organisation also has provided an opportunity for the over 50% youth especially those dropping out of school for various reasons as well as women, men and disadvantaged groups to access alternative quality and practical basic agricultural and environmental education for sustainable for self reliance and human development. This innovative project addressed the strategic issues affecting school drop-outs and other dominant community problems like food insecurity, low income levels, unemployment, environmental degradation, poor health, poor farming systems and intertribal conflicts.
60 peer youth educators were also trained in 2009 and 2011 in all health, human rights and child protection, and business aspects to equip youth and others with business skills for immediate application in some income generating activities and self-employment. This project was designed to offer a flexible system of accelerated education on life skills, (including hands-on–job vocational innovative skills in the sectors of agriculture, entrepreneurship, business skills and health.). It was also designed for adult literacy services to non/semi literate adults for better livelihoods and people who have never attended school or have not completed the primary school level also provide mentoring services to them to bridge the gaps and a means to poverty reduction.
Secondly, Shine Africa Ministries (SAM) has also been since 2009 to-date provided Functional Adult Literacy programs to adults and a total of 300 non literate men and 600 women have so far been trained since 20009.
Shine Africa Ministries Functional Adult Literacy (FAL) is a voluntary program which depends of community volunteers who are trained as instructors and tasked to provide a service to the community members who are in need most of whom are the disadvantaged women.
In Serere District in the Teso Sub-region currently, there are 112 classes registered in the seven sub-.counties. The whole learning process is coordinated by the Community Development Officers at the Sub-county supported by the FAL coordinators who support them in the follow up process.
It was noted that non literate persons or those with low levels of literacy tend to have difficulty in acquiring health messages and practicing health seeking behaviours in their daily life. Non literate mothers are more likely to adopt inadequate nutritional and hygiene practices, less likely to seek for preventive measures like immunization. Non literate women lack awareness and practices of sexual and reproductive health, this increases the likelihood of sexually transmitted infections, high incidences of early pregnancies (50% among girls with no education compared to 15% for those with secondary education) and planned families (only 9.1% of non literate women use any women modern contraceptives method compared to 17.2% of those with primary education.
Therefore, Shine Africa Ministries started the FAL programs in the Teso Sub-region in order to enhance the capacity and the knowledge to these non literate adults to improve their reading, learning and livelihood opportunities and productivity has one way of reducing income gaps in the society as access to market information and better distribution of incomes to every person in the society.
Shine Africa Ministries has also started Children Literacy and FAL programs in the Karamoja Sub-Region which has the highest numbers of illiteracy levels in the whole world, many children are dropping out schools and the major livelihood activity is use of the gun to loot animals from neibouring districts.
The organization has started these literacy programs in Teso and Karamoja Sub-regions as an entry point to other development programs such as NAADS, CDD, civic education and district livelihoods support program. This development interventions use adult literacy groups to reach communities this has motivated the adult learners to continue participating in learning and enhanced their access to other programs and services.
Some Challenges faced while implementing Literacy programs in the Teso and Karamoja Sub-Regions:
However, while implementing these literacy programs, there are numerous challenges such as; high demand for these FAL programs, insecurity in Karamoja Sub-regions, most families in Teso and Karamoja Sub-regions are encased in the deprivation trap of poverty, the vulnerability of households to social, economic setbacks have posed greater challenges to the program due to high absenteeism rates caused by family problems because one is not sure of tomorrow’s meal.
Also lack of understanding of how to create literacy –rich environment in the home, makes it difficult to raise reading achievement among the FAL and vulnerable children supported in these literacy programs. The lack of understanding hinders the ability of parents and others to serve as resources for modeling good reading and learning behaviours.
Also In terms of facilitation, this is greatly affected due to limitation in funds inflow to the literacy programs, this is the greatest challenge faced by the organization in carrying out the literacy programs.
We have overcomed all the above challenges we encountered through interventions that include carrying out lobbying and advocacy, fundraising and writing and submitting the proposals jointly to the partners, involving districts local governments through offices of Community Development Officers so that they help in monitoring and offering support supervision and any available funds they can offer to these programs.
The organization also has put in place Project implementation specific strategies and activities that promote community led participatory approaches to planning, implementation, monitoring as well as evaluation. This is aimed at empowering the target communities to be fully engaged in interventions aimed at bringing positive changes in their midst. Specifically, the organization taped and integrated community structures namely VHTs, Water User Committees and Parish Development Committees (PDCs), VSLA (Voluntary Savings & Loan Associations) methodology as vanguards of community mobilization, action and empowerment and a mechanism of passing information to members as they meet in their different community action collection centers/points.
The strategies and approaches put by organization have helped to address the challenges the organization faced in this program.
PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
Project Background:
Shine Africa Ministries(SAM) is supporting 150 vulnerable children ,100 of which are HIV/AIDS infected, 30 are disabled, 10 have low vision eye problems and 10 of these are child headed families , they live a begging life and 112 women are currently enrolled under the FAL Program in Teso and Karamoja sub regions, found in the Eastern Uganda have gone through many wars both political and tribal, whereby people were confined into internally displaced people’s camps for many decades. During this period there was loss of property and many lives of able bodied men were lost leaving behind a big number of orphans, widows and old people who cannot provide for themselves.
The government of Uganda is giving universal primary and secondary school education to all school going children but most parents and guardians who are recovering from the effects of wars and are resettling back in their ancestral homes cannot afford to provide their children with scholastic materials due to poverty levels.
Though the Government is offering free Universal education to primary and secondary, many children/learners are falling from school and those who go beyond primary level, a majority do not know how to read and write. These poor learners perception, memory is very low, students/learners in the rural settings, do not know “how” to read or how to read well, struggle to keep up where reading is being used as a way to teach concepts, and fail to learn important skills in deriving meaning from texts.
A survey conducted by our local governments in Teso Sub-Region last year, results showed lack of basic literacy skills among students, students have’ significant literacy challenges and recommendations suggested for an urgent importance of providing meaningful learning opportunities to children at a young age and seeks to establish a family literacy program as a cornerstone for securing the trained intelligence of a nation.
Thus, Shine Africa Ministries (SAM) is it is family and community based as well. Studies have shown that poor readers, who are reading at a grade level or more behind, are more likely to be disruptive in the classroom, truant from school, and not just school based; at risk of dropping out of high school. A majority of these vulnerable children face severe challenges while in their families and are in danger of falling behind in the key areas of reading, research and writing. Without the positive influence of the home and the community, the child has few if any opportunities to view reading and learning in an incentive to take on the challenge positive light. He or she will consequently have little of learning to read.
These children are exposed to many risks such as; learning disabilities, such as attention deficit disorder (ADD) and dyslexia, or other economic and language-based difficulties.
Low literacy and crime are closely related “The link between academic failure and delinquency, violence, and crime is welded to reading failure."There is a big number of pupils especially OVC dropping out of school due to lack of scholastic materials which include books, pens, pencils, mathematical sets and school uniform.
The most influential and effective way to combat global poverty, and health is by halting the spread of HIV/AIDs, enabling families to better cope with illness and improving the life expectancy of the world’s poorest.
Finally, the lack of understanding of how to create a literacy-rich environment in the home makes it difficult to raise reading achievement among the student population. This lack of understanding hinders the ability of parents and others to serve as resources for modelling good reading and learning behaviours. A majority of these vulnerable children face severe challenges while in their families and are in danger of falling behind in the key areas of reading, research and writing. Without the positive influence of the home and the community, the child has few if any opportunities to view reading and learning in a positive light. He or she will consequently have little incentive to take on the challenge of learning to read. Perhaps most important, the child will not come to experience the joys that come from reading and learning.