School Fees Network ProgramContact: Amandine Desaunay
Adress: ACF GULU, BOX 812, GULU UGANDA
Email: amades73@yahoo.com
acfgulu@africaonline.co.ug
Ph: +256-77-344 810 or +256-77-788 044BackgroundThe war in Northern Uganda has been going on for 18 years and is one of the most forgotten conflicts in the world resulting in one of the largest displacement of people in the world, more than 1.4 millions people have been internally displaced and live today in camps where they still face high insecurity due to ongoing rebel attacks. Ten thousands of people have been killed, raped or abducted. This is still going on, on a daily basis in the Acholi sub-region (Gulu, Kitgum and Pader Districts) and in Lira district. The current surge in the conflict began mid 2002 when the UPDF (Government Army) entered Southern Sudan to dislodge the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army) rebels from their bases. However the result of this operation was to drive the LRA back into Northern Uganda en force and resulted in further atrocities on the civilians. In February 2004 the UPDF engaged the phase 2 of that operation and reentered Southern Sudan. Exactly the same happened in 2002 and most LRA rebels moved into Uganda again and are conducting looting, abduction and killings on daily basis. In 1996, President Museveni began the Policy of the Protected Villages (PVP) and urged the Acholi population to concentrate in those camps in order to increase the IDPs’ security and reduce the risk of LRA attacks. The protection objective was never achieved and today most Acholi live in camps where they still cannot feel secure. They have left everything they had and they struggle to survive in those camps while still fearing and facing LRA attacks. Problem statement The consequences of the war in northern Uganda are devastating in many areas. One of them being education. There are few schools if any at all in the IDP camps and many children are not sent to school after Primary Level due to high economical constraints on their families. In Uganda, Secondary Level is not free and school fees have to be paid. The long-term effects of having so many children in the same area and from the same ethnic group not receiving the basic education are obvious and dangerous. Even if the war some day ends, those children, future generations of Northern Uganda stand no chance of real freedom and development as long as they are not educated. Project The idea here is a small-scale project whereby a network in the United States, Sweden, France and Germany is put in place aiming at sending IDP children to Secondary School. First Step: Identification of the IDP camps to benefit from the network. The criteria is : accessibility and worse off camps in terms of availability of schools. Second Step: Identification of the children that will be sent to school. The criteria is: Children who have dropped out of school after Primary level due to economical constraints, Children who had started Secondary School but had to drop out due to economical constraints. Considering the large number of children meeting those criteria, additional criteria will be: Taking the children who performed best while previously in school and prioritize female children. A last resort will be to choose by random among the selected children. Budget $300US per year per child is the estimated amount and include School Fees, Boarding Fees, School Uniform and School materials. Organisation Ms. Amandine Desaunay (currently employed as Project Coordinator for an International NGO other than Malecare, Inc.) will be in charge of implementing the project in Gulu assisted by Mrs Pamela Atim (currently employed as Food Security Officer in an International NGO other than Malecare, Inc.). For this project, they are both be 100% volunteers taking no salary or allowances for that project. As the children in question come from IDP camps they need to be sent to boarding schools, as they cannot go back home every day after school. Therefore, the fee paid will have to include: the school fee, the boarding fee (hostel), the school uniform, and school materials (note books and pens) for one school year. Three boarding secondary schools in Gulu Town have been chosen. The criteria for choosing these schools were: the possibility to take new admissions at any time of the year and the good reputation of those schools and the fact that they are in Gulu Town so that the parents have a chance to visit their children and monitor their progress at school. The money to pay the school fees is sent through an international transfer to Western Union by the helper directly to a bank in Gulu having Western Union services. Ms Amandine Desaunay and Mrs Pamela Atim will be the only signatories to the account to withdraw the transferred money and they will be fully in charge of the accountability. They will be in charge of paying out the fees to the schools, of collecting the receipts and of sending these receipts back to the respective helpers. Receipts are sent to each helper after each payment to the school on term basis (every three months). However, it would be more practical to pay for the whole year at once when possible. If the amount of 300$ has not been fully spent after one year, the balance is either sent back to the helper or put in the following school year if the helper so wishes. The request to the helpers is to pay for at least one full school year and then to decide if they want to continue for another year or if they want to drop out of the network. Handing over the network As Ms Amandine Desaunay, the responsible person for that network in Gulu, Uganda may not stay in Uganda for more than one year, a person by the name Mrs Pamela Atim also involved in the network, will be handed over the project as she lives in Gulu permanently. The responsible persons for information dissemination and practical issues in the donor countries are: In France: Pierre Laisne
In Germany: Ulrich Garbe, Behringstrasse 39, 22763 Hamburg, ulrich.garbe@gmx.de +49 40 39198519
In Sweden: Karin Ohman
In United States: Darryl Mitteldorf, darryl@malecare.com |