As
an intern with the Acholi Education Initiative, I have had the opportunity to
go out into the field with the project titled the Dutch Consortium for
Rehabilitation. We have gone to different community schools in the villages of
Amuru District. These are the most marginalized and fragile schools of the
district, which receive no help or supplies from the government. The main
issues that I have witnessed with the progress of the primary schools is that
they do not have the adequate textbooks or supplies for the current curriculum
mandated by the government, they do not have trained or qualified teachers, the
people of the community cannot afford to pay the teachers a reasonable wage,
and the roadways or paths to the schools are less than desirable and sometimes
nearly impossible to follow (especially when the weather is bad).
The
very first school we went to while I was with them was called Kalikali Primary
School. The teachers and students of that school completely stole my heart.
They were so excited to see us coming, and I was actually the first white
person, or Mzungu, to ever make it to the school so the children were really
freaking out. The truck got stuck on the path to the school, as the road
conditions were not very great, and we were not able to do the training for the
students as planned. We made it back about a week later, and the excitement
from the teachers, students, and the community was still just as strong. They
had even worked on the road where we had gotten stuck the week before to make
sure it did not happen again. Someone with the organization did leadership
training with the students who are leaders of the school, and me and a fellow
student from the University of Tennessee, were able to interact with the
teachers and students and play with them for hours. We got to know many things
about the community and even learned some traditional dances from adorable and
talented children. AEI is doing great things, and I hope to work with them again in the future!
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