Developing Change Agents Spawns Grassroots Innovation and Transformation
Location
URDT provides education and training for rural development in Kibaale District, Uganda. One of our leading programs is the Girls’ School, generating a pool of enlightened female leaders by equipping talented girls and their parents with skills, knowledge and attitudes enabling them to become well-rounded agents of change in Uganda.
About You
Section 1: About You
Section 2: About Your Organization
Is your initiative connected to an established organization?
Yes
Organization Name
URDT
Organization Website
Organization Phone
+256 414 256 704
Organization Address
PO BOX 16253, Kampala
Organization Country
Uganda, KBA
Is your organization a
Non‐profit/NGO/citizen sector organization
How long has this organization been operating?
More than 5 years
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Your idea
Name Your Project
Developing Change Agents Spawns Grassroots Innovation and Transformation
Describe Your Idea
URDT provides education and training for rural development in Kibaale District, Uganda. One of our leading programs is the Girls’ School, generating a pool of enlightened female leaders by equipping talented girls and their parents with skills, knowledge and attitudes enabling them to become well-rounded agents of change in Uganda.
Country your work focuses on
Uganda, KBA
Innovation
What makes your idea unique?
The school employs a two-generation approach whereby the parents/guardians and their daughters concurrently acquire personal, social and economic development skills. This is a new way of linking formal education with poverty eradication. The forward and backward linkages between the school, households/communities ensure continuous feedback on how best development can be facilitated.
The school teaches a rural development co-curriculum that is applied alongside and integrated with the government's mandatory curriculum. This unique approach promotes academic success as well as skills development for the girl students to act as change agents in their homes and communities. This is done in combination with a programme to develop knowledge, skills and attitudes of their parents or guardians.
In 2002, just two years after it opened its doors, the Girls' School received an award for its innovative achievements in female education from the Forum for African Women Educationalists. The following year, the District Inspector of Schools declared the Girls' School a model school for East Africa based on its holistic educational package for personal and rural development. Our vision is that the URDT Girls' School will serve as a model for transforming the East African education system.
Do you have a patent for this idea?
No
Impact
This Entry is about (Issues)
Tell us about the social impact of your innovation. Please include both numbers and stories as evidence of this impact
URDT's focus on "Gender and Technology" ensures that women and girls are especially encouraged to participate in trainings and become adept at using these technologies. Use of appropriate technologies spreads as URDT students introduce the technologies into their own families and communities.
During the URDT Girls' School "Gender & Technology Week," 210 girls received trainings in appropriate technologies. In turn, the students trained their parents. Technologies such as drying racks, solar driers and low-cost bathrooms have been adopted by many of these households.
In addition to teaching subjects required by the National Curriculum such as Reading, Math and Science, the URDT Girls' School offers its students an intensive co-curriculum programme that provides hands-on experience in rural development, leadership and income generation.
Co-curriculum subjects include:
Technologies for Creating – Visionary leadership, strategic planning, systems thinking
Vocational Training – Carpentry, tailoring, building and construction, metalwork, mechanics, home improvements, agriculture and energy-saving technologies
Entrepreneurship – Business management, micro-enterprises, savings and credit
Preventive Healthcare – Adolescence and sexuality, HIV/AIDS, water and sanitation
Sustainable Agriculture & Food Security – Organic farming, animal traction
Human Rights & Family Cooperation – Domestic violence, gender roles, land rights
Finally, URDT has a Computer Training Center, which provides the only public Internet access for 50 miles around in an area serving 2 million people. It currently has 10 computers, three with Internet access. Nearly 500 people a year use the Computer Center.
The Computer Center provides the first-ever exposure to computers for most of its visitors. Through access and training, the Center makes computer literacy possible for nearly a hundred new people each year. URDT views Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) as an important tool in rural development. We are currently seeking to develop and expand this programme.
Problem: Describe the primary problem(s) that your innovation is addressing
In our district there is a need for basic economic requirements that need to be in place to generate more income. There are issues of land rights, access to credit and farm inputs, access to feeder roads for market access and availability of transport to bring goods to market. Other problems are reflected in the below statistics:
• The poverty line for households in Uganda is 300,000 Uganda Shillings (about USD $150). The average annual income in the girls' households is about half that: two-parent households earn about USD $75 and single-parent households about USD $37.
• 53% of households are single-parent, headed by females.
• Average size of household is 6.7 people.
• 91% are subsistence farmers who see farming as a means of survival, not as a business.
• 32% of the students are orphans who live with grandparents or other relatives.
• 70% of the families live in small semi-permanent mud houses, 30% of which have no windows.
• 0% have electricity. Open fires or paraffin lamps are used for lighting and heat.
• 77% of the families experience illness within a three-month period, 65% of which is malaria.
• 78% do not own any means of transport, 22% own a bicycle.
Actions: Describe the steps that you are taking to make your innovation a success. What might prevent that success?
URDT believes that education and training will alleviate poverty. URDT promotes integrated rural development, teaching people to address the interconnectedness of health, education, financial self-sufficiency, civic participation and human/gender rights within their lives.
In May 2006, URDT launched a Microcredit Fund to provide microloans to parents and guardians of Girls' School students. The fund is designed to help these rural farming families generate more income and improve their standard of living. The goal is that the Girls' School students will be the last generation in poverty in their families.
Parents will be mobilized into groups, the members of which will be accountable to one another for credit repayment. URDT will provide training in business skills such as savings and financial management. URDT will also provide families with ongoing counseling on the planning and implementation of their projects.
In a survey of Girls' School parents, URDT found that most had land, but didn't know how to fully utilize it for income generation. Most of the families grow crops for subsistence only. Through the Back-Home Projects and Parents Workshops, the parents of Girls' School students received training in business skills, wealth creation and creative visioning. The Microcredit Fund will be the intervention to help these families implement the plans they have begun to design for getting out of poverty.
Results: Describe the expected results of these actions over the next three years. Please address each year separately, if possible
Since URDT arrived in the district, the rural village where it is located has become a "boom town," growing tenfold in size. URDT graduates have created many local businesses that employ themselves and others, and URDT has worked with villagers to improve local roads for better access to markets. Other indicators, such as health, sanitation and girls' education, have also improved markedly.
How many people will your project serve annually?
101‐1000
What is the average monthly household income in your target community, in US Dollars?
Less than $50
Does your innovation seek to have an impact on public policy?
Yes
If your innovation seeks to impact public policy, how?
Approximately 150 words left (1200 characters).
Sustainability
What stage is your project in?
Operating for more than 5 years
Does your organization have a board of directors or an advisory board?
Yes
Does your organization have a non monetary partnerships with NGOs?
Yes
Does your organization have a non monetary partnerships with businesses?
Yes
Does your organization have a non monetary partnerships with government?
Yes
Please tell us more about how partnerships could be critical to the success of your innovation
1. Non-monetary relationship with NGOs-in areas of networking, information sharing and solidarity in policy advocacy
2. With business-promotion of the URDT work, donations of materials and equipment and solidarity in policy influence.
3. With the government-legistration and legitimazation; supplementary in service delivery, protection and security, micro and macro economic environment
We would like to learn more about how your initiative is financially supported. Please explain your business plan/revenue model
Approximately 250 words left (2000 characters).
The Story
What was the defining moment that led you to this innovation?
URDT came to Kibaale in 1989 (then part of Hoima District). it was recovering from the 5 year war and state sponsored extension services were poor and linkage with research stations was weak or in some cases none existent. For many years the farmers observed their soil degraded, farm yield detoriarating and farm incomes falling as they waited for state intervention. This dependency created a sense of powerlessness and in many cases apathy.
URDT in recignition of the history of farming systems and the resilience of the people carried our a survey that indicated there was tremendous wisdom that was not being utilized. On that basis comminities were mobilized to identify different people with unique gifts from who whom they could tap. That is how the concept of farmer scholar was developed. They were invited to come to URDT where some technologies were developed, tested and disseminated for trrials at the farmers level. The follow up has been to work with them on their farms through the participatory adaptive research methodology.
Tell us about the person—the social innovator—behind this idea.
The soscial innovator is Mwalimu Musheshe,( Ashoka Fellow). He was nominated as the first of the two members in the East African region. He is the founder of the Uganda Rural Development and Training programme, an NGO founded in 1987 and involved in human and rural development. It uses the visionary and systems thinking approach in enhancing empowerment. He has initiated innovations in education (founded awomens education system from primary to university at the URDT campus, an institutte for vocation and youth leadership studies, a community radio and engages in humanand land rights, rural technolgies and civil society capacity building. All these innovations are ins support of sustainable agriculture and rural development.
How did you first hear about Changemakers?
Email from Changemakers
If through another source, please provide the information
ICRW
Does your project address any of the following barriers to women’s technology access and use?
Women’s time poverty, Social norms, Economic or institutional constraints, Women’s lack of involvement in the technology development process.
If you checked any of the boxes above, please explain how.
Approximately 250 words left (2000 characters).
Does your project involve women in one or more of the following stages of the technology lifecycle? Identification of the problem the technology will solve:
Technology training.
If you checked any of the boxes above, please explain how you will ensure women’s involvement in each relevant phase of the technology lifecycle.
Approximately 250 words left (2000 characters).
If women are a focus of your project, how did this focus evolve?
The project focused on women from its conception..
Which type of women will your project reach directly?
Rural.
In what ways does your project team/leadership involve women?
The core project team includes women..
Has your organization formed any new partnerships in response to this challenge? If so, with what type/s of organization/s?
Non-profit/NGO/community-based organization, Government, Women's organization.
Has your project leadership had prior experience with the following?
Working with women, Working with technologies, Working to increase women's economic empowerment through technology, Working on innovation.
