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Girls' School Overview
Visionary Approach to Development
Co-Curriculum on Rural Development & Visionary Leadership
Learning Structures That Engage
Two-Generation Approach (Back-Home Projects, Parents Workshops)
Microcredit Fund for Parents
Results and Looking Ahead
Student Characteristics
URDT sponsors the education of girls from the Kibaale District who are socioeconomically disadvantaged and have demonstrated positive conduct and the willingness to learn. These girls come from very challenging conditions. URDT conducted a "semi-baseline" survey of the students' households in 2003, somewhat after the Girls' School had already begun to have an impact. The statistics gathered show the enormity of the challenge as well as some bright spots that indicate significant progress.
Survey of URDTGS Households
- 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.
- 35% have radios.
- => 93% have pit latrines. The majority of these were constructed between 2000 and 2003, when the school began promoting pit latrines.
- => 26% get their water from protected springs, 34% from bore holes, 16.3% from shallow wells and 23.8% from unprotected springs. The large number of safe water sources is in great part because of URDT construction and awareness campaigns.