We work with the vulnerable children and their families in careful preparation to make the transition of these children from childhood to adulthood!. PARC uses an innovative holistic model to ensure that orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs) get an education – go to school, stay-in school, and finish school. PARC actively look for people from all over the world to sponsor children who struggle to raise school fees and scholastic materials for their study. We don’t get sponsorship directed toward individual child but instead a group of children (school) because we work to strengthen the whole community, so all children can thrive!. In addition, we provide school based nutritious meals to all children who attend our schools (PARC Learning Centres). We are also exploring options to launch school based feeding for children at our partner public schools under school outreach project.
Child Sponsorship
For over 2.7 million orphans living in Uganda, quality education is unaffordable and out of reach, locking them in a vicious cycle of poverty and robbing them of a humane childhood and living out their potential. We are trying to change this by working with the vulnerable children and their families in the careful preparation to make the transition of these children from childhood to adulthood as well as from nursery school through primary school to high school easier. We are not AN ORPHANAGE but instead directly support orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs) in their homes, schools, and communities, backed with sustainability programs to help guardians – parents and their elder siblings earn an income and create long-term, sustainable change.
Sponsorships (your donations) support the holistic development of all children as well as their schools to ensure a safe and quality learning environment for every child, ultimately maximizing the impact on the whole community. It helps in subsidizing the teachers’ salary for PARC Schools (allowing for FREE education to orphans and SUBSIDIZED Fee education to needy children), contributes to feeding school children, supporting academic enrichment programs, and facilitating the provision of scholastic essentials to OVCs (including reusable sanitary pads to the girls). For every child SPONSORED externally, another 5 children on our program who do not have any help from their guardian or a sponsor will also indirectly benefit while for every 5 children that pay FULL SCHOOL FEES, 1 vulnerable child gets a half-fees scholarship (using PARC’s innovative child sponsorship model) – that’s because we work to strengthen the whole community, so all children can thrive. The children in the sponsorship program receive an education, emotional (psychosocial) support, life skill training (if required), and are visited at their homes on a quarterly basis to identify areas of need in their health and livelihood. We also provide life skill training, peer support and increase access to healthcare and nutritional support for OVCs and caregivers. Through our support, these children are able to shift their focus from daily survival for themselves and their siblings, to focusing on their education and future aspirations.
To encourage academic success while and creating a sense of community among the students, we are exploring the possibility of incentive-based projects below;-
(i). The Educational Incentive Project will provide incentives (rewards) for students who achieve high class rank, and for students who show the most academic improvement during the year.
(ii). The Kindness Recognition Project will create a sense of community among the students. This project involves asking the school children, under the guidance of a committee of sponsored children to identify both big and small kind acts that happen around them and nominate other vulnerable children (students) for acts of kindness demonstrated during the school year. Our proposed strategy is to offer rewards (incentives) either to a child or their households, usually to the parents/ guardian – the decision will depend on what will prove to be more effective at motivating and supporting their children.
School Feeding
The Ugandan Ministry of Education and Sports faces challenges in implementing its school feeding guidelines that stipulate that parents should take responsibility for feeding their own children in schools. Nearly all schools do not provide breaks or mid-day meals to learners. Most children leave their homes very early and often with no breakfast and study all day on empty stomachs. Teachers observe that the lessons they deliver during the second half of the day (afternoon/ evening classes) get much less attention from pupils than the first half.
School feeding is an effective incentive for poor families to send and keep their children in school, in addition to serving as an excellent platform for initiatives that improve educational quality and keep children healthy. We believe the combination of feeding and educating children works effectively together with a visionary self-sustaining strategy to ensure long-term community development.
At PARC, we are offering 2 nutritious meals (porridge and lunch) daily to all children attending our schools and also sensitize parents about the benefits of the school feeding programs and encourage them to ensure that their children get something to take during break/lunchtime. The project is focused on-premise that improves the academic performance and educational outcome by;-
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Improving enrollment, attendance (reducing absenteeism), retention, and learning – school meals encourage children to attend class and help them concentrate on their studies.
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Fighting hunger and malnutrition (making healthy food accessible and increasing the nutritional status) among school-age children, the leading factor to stunting and vulnerability to infections and disease.
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Promoting a wide range of nutrition education and other training activities in food safety and health, and better eating habits, as well as encouraging the diversification of production with a special emphasis on local crops.
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Linking our schools with local farmers to provide hundreds of schoolchildren in our school with safe, diverse food (providing local farmers with a predictable outlet for their products, leading to a stable income, more investments, and higher productivity).
Academic Enrichment and Mentoring
We are offering a contingent of services ranging from supplemental tutoring to extra-curricular activities (sports, music, art, etc) to experimental labs so children can engage with science through interactive activities that grow their understanding of how the world works. The project is focused on building a comprehensive support system to improve the academic performance and educational outcome by;-
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Organizing tutoring classes that concentrate on English language, Mathematics, and Science and promoting engagement of secondary students in helping primary students improve their academic performances.
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Organizing kids clubs such that the children can have the freedom to act age-appropriate through free play, song, and dance for three hours on Saturday evening.
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We integrate early childhood development (ECD) with Functional Adult Literacy (FAL), where our daycare centers serve as FAL learning sites.
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Ensuring access to learning materials through the library (libraries) where academic materials and several computers connected to the internet will be free to use.
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We also integrate social and financial education for children (Aflatoun curriculum) into classroom practices and organize Aflatoun/ Aflateen clubs to create platforms for children to express themselves, discuss their problems and learn from peers.
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Conducting meetings with parent-teachers to assess the performance of children as well as draw strategies for improvement.
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Offering computer classes will be offered to students, parents, and teachers and they will be taught how to access educational resources online.
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Home visits to provide mentoring to children and support them emotionally, provide encouragement for continuing their studies at home.
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Planning the opening and maintaining of community contact points (to become a meeting place) for reaching out to – and active engagement with the children on the street, who have dropped out of school and started working at a very young age, supporting them to continue with their education.
