What type of children, why and how do we identify them?
Suubi child is a child that have difficulties to stay at school or who has not been able to start school or even who dropped out of school.
We consider giving chances to both girls and boys from families that cannot even afford schoolfees for government schools which are the cheapest in Uganda.
We are considering a child from the age of 4years. The limit is not clear because the children in most cases do not attend school corresponding with their age, due to a lot of social and economic challenges.
To keep a child in school for a year, we need a monthly donation of 23Euros per month per child. If everything remains constant, a child needs 276 Euros a year to be in school.
The school fees include meals ( breakfast and lunch) at school. The government passed this rule because some children come to school with empty stomach which affects their concentration. Maine reason: some families cannot afford the meals, or some children don’t get meals because of abusive parents/guardians.
It would be nice when a person commits to sponsor a child or children till the end of a school diploma or till finishing a school level. Put in mind that when you choose to stop sponsoring earlier, it will affect the childs future. For example, if Mw. Mulder decided to sponsor a child from primary one, it would be nice if she sponsors him/her till primary seven final exams. This will give a clear hope for an educated future.
In case we have extra funds on top of that, we will be able to keep the elder girls safe in school by providing them with menstruation pads for their monthly period. Having no pads is one of the challenges that keep the girls out of school 4-5days a month, which means 15 days a term.
Screening approach
We have done a community -based survey in the communities. We waited until the government opened schools after COVID-19 closing. This has helped us identify children that have not been able to continue with school. Our coordinator drove through the communities identifying poor families and children who are home. They did not tell them why they are surveying. Instead they made it a community survey with no financial support intentions. This helped us to get the real beneficiaries. We have found several children willing and wanting to continue when given a chance.
Contact between the sponsor and the sponsored child.
When you choose to sponsor a child, we will gratefully inform you about him/her at least 3 times a year, after every schoolterm. We will inform you about your sponsorchild’s personaly and acadamicly performance , through a personal log-in code on the website.
You can communicate ‘personaly’ with your sponsor child by sending us a letter or foto’s (PDF/Word/scan) which we sent to our Coordinator in Uganda. He will give it to the child. He/She can respond back to you by our Coordinator in the same way. We will inform you by mail when we have new information or news from your child.
Suubi follow-up about the child
The stichting coordinators will do a follow up on our children at school and if necessary also at home. We do not have a time frame of when they will be checking on them. It will be popups with the month to ensure that children attend school. Popup checks will help us not to create a time frame within the parents, schools and children of when we check. This will make them expect us any time to avoid school absenteeism and child labor on farms.
We will have Stichting Suubi attendance roster for every school. In this roster we make agreement with the director to note the child’s absence and presence daily. Our coordinator will also have one where he will note the same on every popup for every child. This will help us to know that children attend school and not remain home. These books will act as inspector in the mind of teachers, children and parents.
If finance allow us we want to surprise our sponsor children once a year with a special funday with education and fun coming together. They can bring one family member to feel safe. We hope they learn more about society and each other.
We plan to have parents and teachers’ meetings conducted by our coordinator. In that way we are able to evaluate the child’s school performance in education and social behaviors because both teachers and parents are partly responsible. It will be easier to execute this while working with the parents.
We also plan to have a yearly meeting with the community and the leaders of the society. In the meeting we will consider sensitization on child development, Child rights, and adolescents age, because it is a very dangerous stage where most of the girls and boys end up being teen parents.
If finances allow us, we would like to have a yearly camp for Suubi children, for example taking them to a recreation center, sensitizing them on puberty, sex education, career guidance, self-belief and confidence, exposure to better society to create ambitiousness and many more. By doing this we will have a chance to know more about our children and motivating them to see themselves being a suubi family with hope and focus.
In the future we are also planning to have a group trip to Uganda where we invite our sponsors to come with us to visit our children in Uganda.
Goal
With the above measures we believe that we will be able to reduce on Single mothers, Teenage pregnancies, Teenage marriages, Child labor and school dropouts, hence creating an independent society.
Would you like to sponsor with us?
Get in touch with us through email https://suubi.nl/contact/ <https://suubi.nl/contact/> so that we can give you more details.
Influence COVID-19 in the school
The outbreak of covid19 left a lot of girls and boys out of school, schools were closed since March 2020 many children have not been able to go back to school, a lot of girls have ended up pregnant, and others with no hope of continuing with school because their parents have lost their jobs.
Covid-19 has united the world in an incredibly unique way. While it is true that everyone has struggled with the fallout of this global pandemic, it has had more serious consequences on some of the most vulnerable populations. Unfortunately, adolescent girls have been among the most adversely affected and for some, life has become downright dangerous. Many girls and boys are left vulnerable to teenage pregnancy, early childhood marriage and gender-based violence, among other devastating effects of Covid-19. Stichting suubi have recognized the need to engage with younger girls and boys especially the adolescent that have dropped out of school.
In Uganda, as with many other countries around the world, Covid-19 has resulted in an increased rate of teenage pregnancy. In order to gain necessities like sanitary towels, girls have engaged in transactional sex with men who take advantage of their need for money.
According to the police report in Mukono and Buikwe District where stichting suubi operates there have been 2530 cases of teenage pregnancies reported since the outbreak of COVID-19. many girls are left without a partner because they fear being imprisoned this leaves the teenage mothers becoming single parents! Incidence of early-childhood marriage is also on the rise as poverty caused by the pandemic has forced families to marry off their daughters to help alleviate financial burdens.
In addition to early marriage, many girls are facing workforce at a young age to help provide for their families. In some communities, girls are also forced to take on much of the domestic work at home, keeping them away from seeing their friends and joining community-building activities. When schools reopen, many of these girls will not go back because their mind would have changed.
The articles below were published during the lockdown 2020, by Uganda’s top media houses about the effects from COVID-19 on school going children. In their case studies are in some districts of the country, but it is the picture in the rest of districts including Buikwe and Mukono where we operate . I share them for more information reference.
Lockdown worsens teenage pregnancies - Daily Monitor <https://www.monitor.co.ug/uganda/news/national/lockdown-worsens-teenage-pregnancies-2452380?fbclid=IwAR0Q-27er0MBJRpddBw81wptAZ-e9eqeSdViMwDrEIimICy9d5xjIsu4NgQ>
LANGO REGION: Sharp rise in violations with COVID-19 - NTV Uganda <https://www.ntv.co.ug/ug/news/national/lango-region-sharp-rise-in-violations-with-covid-19-2483380?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook_NTV_Uganda&fbclid=IwAR0sA6N_SHsnYEGs2IrEoviZemIzu1USP_DgSnVyv2AQ2bKzDoQ51ygsQ2E>
2,300 school girls conceive, 128 married off during lockdown - Daily Monitor <https://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/2-300-school-girls-conceive--128-married-off-during-lockdown/688334-5599830-dvcfs9/index.html>