Schools to compete in proposal writing

Mar 24, 2009

OVER 200 secondary schools in Uganda are to participate in this year’s ‘Young Social Entrepreneurs Awards’ annual contest.

By Jeff Lule and Abou Kisige

OVER 200 secondary schools in Uganda are to participate in this year’s ‘Young Social Entrepreneurs Awards’ annual contest.

The contest, which targets students aged 12-18, will require participants to write innovative proposals for projects related to solving social problems in a community.

“Participating schools will benefit from a free leadership training programme among other prizes,” says Collins Tugumisirize, the managing director of Afroeducare Uganda.

Afroeducare is an education development and marketing organisation working with the Ministry of Education to promote quality education and expose local schools to an international audience. It is based in Kamwokya, a city suburb.

“From the 200 schools, only 12 projects shall be selected and each will win sh500,000, while every student on the winning project shall win over sh50,000,” he said.

During the competition, students are expected to form a team of 10, having identified a need or problem to solve in the communities neighbouring their schools.

Each group comprising students from various schools, is then expected to mentor another group of 10 primary school children, into what they are doing in order to encourage the spirit of passing on good values to the next generation.

Innovation, creativity, simplicity and good grammar in English are mandatory for a project to win. In 2007, Afroeducare organised the same project under the name ‘Kids Helping Kids’ with 72 schools participating. Twelve out of the 63 secondary schools that participated received $6,000, (about sh12m) to carry out community activities within their school environment. The proposal from Makerere College School, dubbed ‘Cleaning out dirt, moral and intellectual upbringing project’ scooped the top slot.

Hope Senior School’s proposal of ‘Reaching out to the community’ together with Bugema Adventist Secondary School’s ‘Clean and beautify it’ were the runners-up. Each school was given $500 (about sh830,000) per proposal.

The deadline for handing in proposals is April 20, while the winning project proposal shall be announced on April 30. All implemented proposals shall receive medals in relation to their rankings.

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});