According to the 2017 revision of the World Population Prospects report from the United Nations, 49.75% of Uganda’s population is below the age of 17, and 43% of the population is 14 or under; this last cohort is, of course, the ages of children who have not yet reached secondary schooling. This makes Uganda the country with the youngest population in the world. This also means that there is a very small middle class. Both of these facts bring us to the same conclusion: the future of Uganda could be so, so bright if a decent education can be administered to the youth. Below are a few ways we attempt to do just that.

Our Programs

Education

Propel was founded for this purpose and it remains at the heart of what we do. All other programs were initiated in order to support a better education for the thousands of students who attend (or hope to attend) one of the five schools that Propel works with.

Our teacher consultancy program brings ideas and techniques from teachers across the United States to the Ugandan teachers responsible for molding the young minds of their students. The Propel Foundation’s teachers also build curriculum that aim to prepare the young students for their State exams; exams that the students’ performance on is very indicative of their ability to move on to secondary schooling and, potentially, the college level. This program is sustainable not only because of the hard work of teacher volunteers here in the States, but especially so due to Propel’s teacher-staff in Uganda, which is headed by a bright young woman named Pennie. Pennie visits each of the five schools on a regular basis to give support to teachers with the curriculum and to further instill Propel’s outreach.

Health & Nutrition

As mentioned above, all programs Propel has initiated since its launch in 2013 have been to support education. Our health and nutrition initiatives have done just that.

We were finding that many children were not healthy enough on a regular basis to attend school regularly, and even more were not performing up to their abilities because of certain ailments, notably dehydration and malaria. The Propel Foundation’s medical team in the US, which is comprised of two doctors and several nurses and nurses’ assistants, provides health care and prescriptions to combat the illnesses and diseases that most often prevent the students from excelling at school. Furthermore, Propel Staff member, Ronald, a Ugandan man with extensive medical training, visits each of the five schools year-round to continue to provide health care. The medical teams’ efforts have resulted in not only healthier students, but also higher rates of attendance and higher test scores. The issue of dehydration was also directly addressed by The Propel Foundation by an initiative in 2016-2017 to build a well at each of the schools. This is often the main source of clean drinking water for not only the schools, but also for the greater community.

On-site Building & Maintenance

Each of the schools that The Propel Foundation works with was/is in need of one or more buildings on their compound. We successfully completed the wells at each school, but there are other pressing projects.

The goal of this program is to engage the communities around the school to support the completion of these projects by helping with the labor and the ongoing maintenance. This requires community outreach from Ugandan staff and volunteers to not only supervise the ongoing maintenance, but also to engage with community leaders about the importance of such improvements. This model has successfully led to new latrines at two of the schools and will be implemented for the remaining latrines. For future, bigger projects, the plans will be drafted by our engineering committee on our board and, while implemented in much the same way as the latrines, will require more professional help.

What we stress at Propel is the sustainability of our programs. We do not want to do anything for these communities. Instead, we want to teach and work alongside these communities and schools in order to provide the knowledge and wherewithal to continue on, whether we’re around or not. Our on-site building and maintenance projects are a great example of this philosophy in action. The locals build bricks, we provide cement, and together we build.