One 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.

Educate! 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.  

Angelica Towne, Co-Founder of Educate!, knows that when girls, their families, and their communities see education as an investment that can have a direct and measurable impact on their lives, more girls will receive the opportunity for a quality education.  “When [girls] see that education can lead to power and independence, they are more likely to pursue education,” she says in a recent interview with AFK Insider. 

The Global Good Fund Fellowship is a 15-month program supporting the leadership development of young social entrepreneurs across the globe. The Global Good Fund  invests in these innovators by pairing them with executives who serve as Coaches, and by providing leadership assessment resources, a network of peers, sector expertise, and targeted financial capital. Click here find out more about the GGF fellowship. 

At the end of 2014, a global organization held a national business competition of over 500 schools. Educate! scholars from Kalinabiri Secondary School were awarded the Project Innovation Award! Their projects were liquid soap, shoe polish and crafts. They were interviewed on NTV & UBC and asked how they learned the skills. They replied by thanking their Educate! Mentor and the Educate! organization for equipping them with the knowledge and skills to start their businesses.