Next month, Educate! will launch our program expansion in Northern Uganda. This post-conflict area is the most impoverished region of Uganda – the poverty rate, at 43.7%, is nearly twice as high as the next-poorest region of Uganda, and more than two times the national average. After 23 years of conflict, two million people in Northern Uganda were uprooted from their homes and over 20,000 youth were abducted.
Read MoreIn honor of Educate!’s 2015 WISE Awards win, the World Innovation Summit on Education (WISE) produced a short video explaining the program’s model and impact.
Read MoreLast week, Educate!’s co-founders-- Executive Director Boris Bulayev and Global Director of Programs Angelica Towne-- were in Doha, Qatar accepting the 2015 WISE Award, the pre-eminent global education award.
Educate! is a 2015 WISE Award Winner, and Boris and Angelica had the opportunity to present Educate!’s award-winning model to Summit attendees, as well as participate in a panel on the importance of skills-based education for youth and how to prepare a generation of leaders and entrepreneurs.
Read MoreWhen Jane begins to describe her first teaching job at Mbogo High, her whole face lights up. Her love for the girls that she taught and the impact she made on them becomes evident. An all-girls school, Mbogo High served as a platform for Jane to grow into a strong teacher and advocate for female empowerment within the education system.
Read MoreHere’s some good news: a new Pew Research Center survey has found that people in major Sub-Saharan African nations are feeling more optimistic about the future than many others around the world.
“A median of 60% across the nine countries surveyed say their economy is going to improve in the next 12 months, and 56% believe the next generation will be better off financially than their parents. This is a much higher level of optimism than expressed by many others around the world.”
Read MoreStephen Ogwang, an Educate! Mentor and businessman, just oozes charm. With a smile to kill and confidence to spare, he welcomes us into the Police Barracks in Nsambya, Kampala. This is where he’s set up shop; his brightly colored MTN Mobile stand among the uniforms, armed trucks and housing for police personnel. Although it may seem like an unusual place to conduct business, Stephen explains that his location is a part of his carefully-crafted strategic business plan to address a community need.
Read MoreEducate!’s successful expansion to northern Uganda depends on people who are from the community and for the community. For this reason, Educate! has spent the last several months investing heavily in hiring the management team and staff who will lead our expansion into northern Uganda, all of whom are from the region. They have seen how destructive violence can be, they understand the deep consequences war has on a community, and they can directly relate to the youth they’re working to impact.
Read MoreWe are so excited to share that Educate! has been named a winner of the 2015 WISE Awards. Educate! was one of six cutting edge projects chosen for transforming communities and providing one of the most innovative and effective approaches to a pressing challenge in global education. This award represents a huge accomplishment and validation of Educate!'s mission and impact, as our flagship program-- the Educate! Experience -- was selected by an international panel of education experts.
Read MoreWe’re excited to announce a new partnership with Mission Meats, a young, mission-driven startup that produces grass-fed beef snack sticks without nitrates, gluten, or MSG. As part of its model, Mission Meats commits 10% of its profits to social good organizations.
Read MoreInduction is a two week intensive training for Educate!’s passionate field staff (Mentors, Youth Leaders and Program Officers) where they reflect on the successes and challenges of the previous term and prepare for the next. It is a powerful intersection of work and play. “Camp Rules” are posted to the wall and there truly is an overnight camp atmosphere. Staff form Induction families to create a sense of community; they bunk together in the dormitories; they play games together during down time; they form essential bonds between those who are newcomers and those who are exiting the Educate! family, on to bigger and better endeavors. But most importantly, they learn together, challenge one another, and look forward to the next school term together. It’s an exciting environment, a mixture of determination and contagious laughter.
Read MoreOut of more than 1,400 applicants from around the world, Educate! has been selected by the Epic Foundation as one of the 20 most impactful youth organizations globally.
Read MoreYou may remember a story we shared recently about Educate! Scholar Blessed Grace and her successful rabbit-raising business.
Read MoreEducate! is thrilled to announce that we are one of 15 projects selected by the Partnership to Strengthen Innovation and Practice in Secondary Education (PSIPSE), a collaboration between Dubai Cares, Echidna Giving, Intel Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The MasterCard Foundation and an anonymous donor. The investments announced by PSIPSE will increase the participation, quality and relevance of secondary education for economically disadvantaged and marginalized children in developing countries.
Read MoreIn honor of the first ever World Youth Skills day, Loren Crary, Educate!'s Director of External Relations, and Nicole Goldin, Educate! board member and Senior Associate and Director of the Youth, Prosperity, and Security Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, each authored a piece discussing the importance of skills-based education.
Read MoreOn April 25th Educate! held its National Student Business Club competition to exhibit and celebrate the huge achievements of its 2014 Business Clubs! The competition was an opportunity for Scholars to showcase their Club projects, as well as the public speaking, presentation and business skills they learned through Educate!.
Read MoreEducate! is thrilled to share that our flagship program, The Educate! Experience, is one of fifteen projects named a 2015 WISE award finalist, chosen for providing one of the most innovative and effective approaches to current global education challenges.
Read MoreBrookings’ Millions Learning Project has featured on their blog a preliminary case study featuring Educate!. The Brookings Institution is the foremost thought leader in international education. We greatly respect their work, and we are thrilled and honored to be featured by them.
Read MoreEducate! is thrilled to announce an exciting new partnership with The School Fund and Schools Building Schools. A matching gift campaign with these partners will fund four Educate! schools, reaching 350 students per school for a total of 1,400 students! These 1,400 students will have the opportunity to participate in a practical model of education, comprised of leadership and entrepreneurship training, mentorship and experience starting a business. You can join the campaign, learn more about the four schools being funded and double your impact by visiting http://theschoolfund.org/educate.
Read MoreOne of Educate!’s strengths lies in our strong in-country leadership. As of January 2015, our Uganda team is being led by two Ugandan women, Country Director Sarah Kayondo, and Program Director Hawah Nabbuye, who were promoted from their previous roles of Deputy Country Director and Deputy Program Director, respectively. The strength of our local team in Uganda creates room for our previous Country and Program Directors – now Global Director of Programs and Director of Policy and Partnerships, respectively – to support strategic investments in program quality and to have the time to explore opportunities for new country expansion.
Read MoreEducate! kicked off the 2015 school year in Uganda last month, further scaling our model to reach 250 schools and more than 87,000 students! This means that we’re reaching 350 youth per school, a number verified by recent monitoring data, which found that in addition to the 40 Scholars who directly receive our leadership and entrepreneurship training program, at least 310 additional students per school benefit from other components of the Educate! Experience. These include working with Experience Association teachers and other school-wide activities such as Student Business Clubs, required peer mentorship by Scholars and Community Days. This is a significant increase from our initial very conservative estimate of 60 additional students impacted through our model.
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