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Feature Stories
Using Head and Hands Together—Rushooka Orphans Education Center
Ntungamo, Uganda — Vincent and Dorah Rutangonya's decision to devote their lives to raising orphaned children was a deeply personal one: they grew up as orphans themselves.
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In western Uganda, amidst the hills on the border of the Democratic Republic of Congo, they founded the Rushooka Orphans Education Center in the 1990s, as a primary school for vulnerable community children who could not afford school fees. The Rutangonyas used their own resources—and donated their own land—to establish Rushooka, and within two years the program was given a license by the Ministry of Education to operate as an official primary school.
Uganda's introduction of free universal primary education (UPE) in 1995 enabled Vincent and Dorah to establish a vocational training program in addition to the primary school and to pay their teachers a small stipend. Over the years, Rushooka's model combining traditional schooling and vocational training has grown in response to the needs and experiences of local children.
Says Vincent, "Children were always telling us that they wanted to continue schooling, but that they also wanted skills they could use when education was not enough to get a job. We believe that achievement comes by using the head and the hands together." As word spread about the remarkable work of the Rutangonyas, the organization called together local guardians, orphaned children, and members of the community to chart out Rushooka's future.
Today, in addition to basic education, Rushooka focuses on equipping children with meaningful skills that translate into livelihoods to support themselves and their families. Rushooka offers its students training in construction, brickmaking, joinery, agriculture and tailoring. Some students continue to higher level vocational training colleges while others are offered apprenticeship training working with local carpenters, tailors and textile business owners. The neighboring villages and towns around Rushooka are densely populated, which means that graduating students have a good chance of finding employment or selling their skills once they complete their training.
Rushooka has established a local board and has engaged community leaders in supporting and expanding the program by offering in-kind and financial support. Rushooka works closely with local guardians and caretakers in the community to help them understand the needs of vulnerable children and the services Rushooka can provide.
Bantwana is helping Rushooka expand its program in a number of ways. Bantwana is working with staff to assess their organizational and technical strengths and weaknesses using a community assessment tool that helps to evaluate the impact of Rushooka programming on orphans and vulnerable children. Bantwana's investment will also expand the vocational training and apprenticeship program targeting children who are not in school or the most likely to drop out. In addition, Bantwana is facilitating training in psychosocial support and counseling for Rushooka staff through a national institution skilled in helping orphans and vulnerable children cope with depression, anxiety, and anger associated with loss. Left unmet, this condition can deeply affect young people's coping skills over the long term.
Over the next year, Bantwana will work with Rushooka to track graduates who have been through the program and assess their current employment situations. This will help Rushooka adjust its program strategy if necessary and also help them identify other technical areas for training. In the future, Bantwana will bring Rushooka together with other CBO partners to share resources, networks, lessons learned, increasing the capacity of the entire Bantwana network to raise orphans and vulnerable children more holistically and effectively.