Chrysalis Youth Empowerment Network

Village-based children in Uganda rarely make it to the end of their education and tha vast majority never go to secondary school at all.  This means that rural children become part of the cycle of poverty, never learning enough to bring themselves out of the situation that they are in, as mostly from subsistence farming families.  As a result most of these children cannot afford to go to secondary school, because secondary schools are not part of the Universal Free Primary Education policies established around the world.

The Chrysalis Secondary School in Omoro Uganda aims to solve these problems by providing training and services to children while they are in Primary, giving them the skills to raise money for their secondary school fees.  For existing children ready for secondary, we are looking for sponsorship support, to give us time to teach children how to raise money for themselves, by giving them plots on our own school land to raise money from and seeds to plant at home.

This fundraiser is for those many children who left Primary and have not yet been able to afford to attend secondary, despite getting good Primary results.  They live locally to our school, so their fees will be very affordable compared to those having to board.  They will also help to fill up our new school, which needs to cover the costs of its own teachers.

We are aiming to raise £200 per child for one year's tuition (including uniform) and we hope to be able to start 50 children, so that is a target of £10000.  However, if we don't raise that much, then we will educate one child for each £200 raised.

Many children in Uganda have been out of school now for almost two years, so a sponsorship will completely change their lives, especially if they had not expected to be able to go to secondary.

So why do we advocate the Chrysalis Secondary School for rural children?  Our focus has been on talent development for the last ten years in Uganda and thus our schools has a number of unique aspects to it, plus some brilliant international partners, who are helping us deliver professional services.

Music is being supported by Brass4Africa, a unique organisation that teaches music and also personal development skills alongside the curriculum.

Athletics is a specialist area for Chrysalis and we are joint founders of the Platinum Kids Athletics League.  We have a 400m track at the school and youth teams from all over Uganda for excellent competition.

Boardgaming is very prominent in our offering as a charity and we have the largest library of boardgames in Uganda.  We have run the Uganda Village Boardgame Convention for four years and recently won an award for our boardgaming work.

Science is very important at the school and we have a well-equipped lab and some excellent equipment, including telescopes, wildlife books.  We also run awareness training for global warming and climate change issues.

High Quality Teaching is paramount at the school and all of our teachers are fully qualified secondary school teachers.  We also have a library of mainly African-authored books and enthusiasm forpromoting reading and developing young writers.

Girls' Empowerment is a major problem in Ugandan schools, as many fail to complete their schooling, compared to boys.  We build confidence in the girls with assertiveness training, entrepreneurship skills and mentoring, to ensure that they can reach the end of their secondary education.

Specialist Farming Training is central to our offering, both to our secondary and upcoming primary children.  The key is to give them confidence that they can earn money from farming to sustain and develop themselves and their education.

Everyone a Programmer is a teaching programme designed to bring more rural children into computer programming.  Now that rural areas are starting to be connected to the web, we believe that rural programmers can help build the economies of disadvantaged regions.

The Chrysalis Secondary School aims to be a beacon of hope for all of those who live in remote parts of Northern Uganda, who also have aspirations, talent and vision for their area, but have no school ready to nurture those abilities.  We are recognised as changemakers in the local area already and have contributed a great deal to the community and we expect all of our pupils to be able to do the same, when they graduate from our school.

We have 50 children waiting for sponsorship this year and every £200 that is raised will enable us to take on another remote rural child into secondary education, who might otherwise not attend.  Please do your best to support the development of our world's most exciting continent!