We give hope to children who had no future. We locate smart, motivated youngsters affected by AIDS, war, and poverty. We educate these excluded youngsters in the top schools, help them climb to the top of their class, and propel them to university. Our dynamic, transformational education program is unique. L.E.A.D Uganda’s educational leadership initiative for abandoned children will enable East Africa to follow Asia's path and achieve technological and economic growth.

The Issues We Address

The AIDS pandemic and the conflict in the north has devastated whole regions of Uganda, amplifying poverty and despair. 1.9 million orphans saw their parents die of AIDS. An insurgency waged by the Lords Resistance Army has created 1.6 million Internally Displaced People (IDP) in northern Uganda, of whom 1 million are children. 28,000 children -  some as young as nine -have been abducted and forced to become child soldiers or sex slaves by the rebel Lords Resistance Army. The children we serve are disposed. They live in child-headed families. They are former child-soldiers, children living in IDP camps, night commuters, and orphans. Unfortunately most of our children are touched be two or three of these tragedies. Our typical student-member is a is a former-solder who lives in a refugee camp. His / her parents died from AIDS or war. Our students were out of school. They did not eat every day. They are neither seen, nor heard. Our children are :

• Child Soldiers and Abducted Children. 80% of the fighters in the LRA are abducted children who are forced to kill friends or their parents. They are beaten and burned with heated machetes. They can be executed for small infractions. Girls who refuse sex might have their lips cut off.

• Children in IDP Camps. Most families living in camps for Internally Displaced People are subsistence farmers who are not able to work their land due to poor security. The lack of schools has affected two generations. Water is unsanitary. Medical care is minimal.

• Night Commuters. Thousands children commute two to five miles nightly to sleep on the grounds of hospitals or the floors of community centers, often without a blanket to protect them. Although, their numbers have fallen recently due to a lull in the fighting, this remains a problem.

• AIDS Orphans and War Orphans. Uganda has millions of orphans. Some come from the north. Others from  southern villages like Kalungi in Rakai District, where, due to AIDS, 70% of the children are orphans. These children are forgetting their parents and their tribal traditions.

Bad as these problems are, the loss of leaders and productivity in the caretaker generation due to the cumulative effect of these issues, is the gravest challenge facing Uganda. No society can survive without leaders. These problems will persist “unto the seventh generation”, unless we replenish the leadership pool. Our mission is to save Uganda’s future by finding “excluded” youngsters with talent and drive and training them to be world class leaders.

Most Aid Fails Short

Most aid to Africa is geared to barely keeping people alive or bringing them one step above abject poverty. This is not enough. We give Africa things: fish. But we do not give them skills. We do not teach them how to fish.  If we do not re-directed a greater portion of our aid to capacity building, Africa will remain dependent. This dispatch from the United Nations news agency IRIN illustrates this point: "GULU, 25 November 2008 - Poor learning conditions and lack of food in primary schools have forced thousands of children out of class in northern Uganda over the past three months, local officials said. The problem has been made worse as displaced primary schools relocate back to their original sites in villages when UN food aid support to primary schools has stopped," Robinson Obot, Gulu District education officer said. Some 11,123 children below 15 years of age, he said, had dropped out of primary education in Gulu alone. Most were girls - of whom many had been married off to older men..." The UN fed people in camps and sent children to minimal schools for twenty years. They spent millions. What do they have to show for it? Thousands of children out of school. Could these dire results have been prevented if the UN had incorporated our model into their efforts? L.E.A.D Uganda produces results. We are training the leaders the third world needs.

Solutions

Why L.E.A.D Uganda is Needed

L.E.A.D Uganda offers an innovative solution to the issue of child soldiers / abducted / refugee children and to the AIDS orphans crisis.  We formed a leadership program because the leadership of sub-Saharan Africa has been decimated by war and AIDS. We train leaders so Uganda can determine its’ own destiny, develop economically, and heal. Building leaders is our mission. L.E.A.D Uganda builds leaders by providing talented, motivated youngsters suffering from poverty, war, and AIDS with access to the best education. We melded children from divergent tribes into a robust family, seasoned with firm moral values.

Rebuilding the Managerial Classes

Educating leaders in sub-Saharan Africa is especially important because the AIDS pandemic devastated the educated and managerial classes: teachers, civil servants, army commanders. Insecurity in northern Uganda has affected two generations while devastating the region’s infrastructure. If we do not educate talented young orphans, if we ignore the brightest child soldiers, a nucleus of new administrators will not emerge, making it difficult to create economic stability or build stable societies governed by the rule of law. Outsiders can not make Africa independent. Nor can they create institutions that will provide justice and prosperity. Only indigenous leaders can accomplish that. We train young people to be leaders because we are concerned for the future of Africa. If Uganda is to climb out of the morass of AIDS and war, the cultivation of a new generation of home-grown leaders must begin today.

Poverty Alleviation

The education and cultivation of young leaders is a crucial, but often overlooked component of our efforts to alleviate poverty and create a safer planet. The United Nations has called poverty the most effective poverty alleviator.  President Obama in his 2010 State of the Union Address said, “In the 21st century, one of the best anti-poverty programs is a world-class education.” Educating leaders lifts people out of poverty. In the United States, education is the highway to success for millions of immigrants. After World War II, the Marshall Plan re-built Europe’s infrastructure to contain Communism. Today’s infrastructure is both mental and physical. Knowledge is the pathway to economic growth. An educated, technological elite is guiding India to super-power status. Thus far, the digital age has benefited countries such as India that made a concerted effort to train leaders and harness their energies. Africa is worse off. What keeps Africa from emulating India’s success is not brain power: “African college students are doing exceptionally well....In 2000, Africans averaged the highest educational attainments of any group in the United States - higher even than whites and Asians.”* The problem is lack of opportunity for millions of children living in poverty. That is what we do. L.E.A.D Uganda locates forgotten children, educates them, and helps them achieve their dreams. That will allow the people of the continent to make the next step — to enjoy the fruits of technology, to build prosperity, and to reach their full human potential.

Why We Send Students To the Top Schools

We send students to the best schools so they will gain the skills and confidence to help their communities.

It is not enough to just do the minimum - or what we think is politically correct or possible. The Millennium Goal of Universal Primary Education by 2015 is not bad. It is simply not good enough for the children of Africa. Even if every child in the third world has a 7th grade certificate, what will they be equipped to do in our 21st-century, computer-oriented economy? Subsistence farming is not a future. Half the people in the third world now live in cities. Africa will remain dependent on the “kindness of strangers” unless children are given marketable skills. Uganda has achieved the Millennium Goal of Universal Primary Education; yet, millions of children not attending school regularly. They lack food. They work to support younger siblings. They do not have money for pens and paper. They go to sub-standard schools, where the teachers may lack a high school diploma. And of those who graduate from primary school, only a small percentage go on to high school. Even fewer make it to college.

Before & After

Most of L.E.A.D Uganda’s 90 student-members were out of school or not attending regularly when they joined. Below are a few examples and what they achieved since joining L.E.A.D Uganda:

• 10-year-old Katongole missed the half of each school term. He toiled in a rock quarry until he earned the money for shoes and books.

• 10-year-old Sanyu in rural Rakai was responsible for the care and feeding of two younger siblings because her parents died of AIDS:  “We didn't have money to buy food. It is horrible to go to school on an empty stomach... I (was) like a mother, looking after my sister and brother...stuck in the village fetching water, digging for food, and collecting firewood..”

• 12-year-old Madinah was told she had to quit school at the end of 6th grade to get married because her grand father could not afford to care for her.

• 12-year-old Ntege, who worked in a rock quarry 3 days a week while attending school part-time, finished primary school with top grades but did not have the money to attend high school.

• Kimbowa was forced to drop out “when I was nine”:  “I had to earn money to pay for school fees, books and clothes. I made envelopes; I cut, folded and glued them....I sold 300 a day for (77¢). It wasn't enough. ‘You have to earn more money and not go to school,’ my mother said. But, more than anything I wanted to study.”

• 12-year-old former child soldier Ongom attended Oluuornguu Primary School. school in Pader IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) camp: “I sat on the floor with 52 other students. The school had no books, desks, or chalkboard. We went to school at ten o’clock with soldiers escorting us.....children can’t study because they fear being abducted by the rebels at school.”

All of these young people, now teenagers in L.E.A.D Uganda, are top performers at the best schools in Uganda — and they are leaders:

• Katongole received a full government scholarship to study pharmacy. When he graduates in four years,  this former quarry boy - who broke rocks into pebbles for 1500 shillings (73¢) a day, will be able to help his country which suffers from a shortage of pharmacists. (There are only 350 registered pharmacists in the country and they are expected to serve a population of 30 million people.) “I am the happiest man on the planet. From a quarry boy to a pharmacist!  It’s unbelievable, but now its true. I think now that nothing is impossible."

• Sanyu and Madinah have A+ averages at an elite high school. Sanyu organized a public speaking workshop  for our younger students last January.

• Ntege won a $20,000 scholarship to the African Leadership Academy, perhaps the best school on the continent, which only accepted 100 students from the whole continent. This fall he heads to university in the United States.

• Kimbowa was elected deputy head boy at a top high school

• Ongom attends the best high school in Uganda, Kings College Budo.

Please Help

The success of our young scholars shows the leaders Africa desperately needs can be found among the groups most affected by crisis. If these talented young people are nurtured, if they are given world-class skills, they will lead their compatriots, their tribes, their countries, and the continent to a brighter future. Please support us so our talented children can realize their goals.