Roser Educare Foundation

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has had a severe impact on the education sector in Uganda. Although private education institutions were quick to adopt E-learning, majority of children were left out due to limited access to digital learning resources. 80% of Uganda's school age children live in rural areas that are characterized with lack of basic living resources, under developed education infrastructure and difficulties in accessing learning technologies.

Roser Educare Foundation will provide free access to digital learning resources through the Child Arise Digital App. This App will include education games and quizzes in various subjects with assessments to improve the children's literacy and numeracy skills.

If scaled globally, the Child Arise Digital App could change the lives of so many children living in rural and suburban areas of Africa because of the equitable digital access which will reduce the education gap between the privileged and deprived groups.

Roser Educare Foundation aims to reduce the limited access to Basic Education.  The corona virus pandemic has affected 15 million learners in the country and is taking a toll on communities that are already vulnerable or marginalized- the poor, the rural and illiterate children. The daily struggles and access to basic necessities of life make education not to be considered  priority hence high levels of school dropouts. For many vulnerable children, a learning environment is where they can get access to education, safe water, food and mental health support. Without it, they are exposed to sexual, physical and psychological abuse.

The difficulty of accessing learning technologies and the level of digital literacy skills between privileged and deprived groups continue to widen the education gap. Without urgent action, the situation will likely get worse as the region faces a rising demand for education due to a still-growing school-age population.

Through the Child Arise Digital App, Roser Educare Foundation aims to provide a safe and equitable learning environment to all children from disadvantaged backgrounds. The learning center will supplement out of school learning, support school dropouts to have an opportunity to basic education hence ensuring continued learning.

Our solution is to develop an education app (The Child Arise Digital App.) This app will be installed on mobile devices to provide a virtual classroom to children who have been deprived of school education. The app will be designed to allow individualized learning, access to information that they cannot access in a traditional classroom, support remote learning and improve the children's ability to use technology.

The educational tool will include a curriculum that encompasses various subjects like Mathematics, English, Social Studies and Science. It will contain summaries of lessons, education games and quizzes that will cover different age groups to allow students learn as well as test their knowledge on the subjects. English language is the only official language in Uganda but local languages are part of the primary school curriculum.  The App will include a digital library in English and other local languages to make it accessible for children in remote locations.

The content will be developed with other stake holders like teachers to ensure that the learning content integrates with the Uganda National curriculum. These resources will be made available at the Foundation's learning center designated to provide a secure and equitable environment for learning. 

Despite efforts made to incorporate Information Communication Technology into mainstream curriculum, Uganda's education system is still rooted  on the traditional learning approach which has limited the access to modern technology platforms that have been introduced to keep pace with learning and teaching. The outbreak of COVID-19 has led to absence of formal schooling due to lack of access to technology. Majority of the children in Uganda do not have access to mobile devices and have limited knowledge about Digital Learning. The lack of access to technology is considered as a biggest barrier to learning. Thus there is still need for innovative technology solutions that offer equitable, practical and interactive learning approaches to support the Education system and ensure the continued education for children living in disadvantaged communities. 

The expected impact and outcome of the Education App is to improve significantly children’s abilities to become active learners who seek to understand complex subject matters and not just the basics in order to set the stage for effective learning. We hope to reach over 300 children over the next three months during the pilot study, 1000 children in one year and 5000 children in five years within Uganda.

This education will improve and support the education system because quality education and lifelong learning opportunities for all are central to ensuring a full and productive life to all individuals and to the realization of sustainable development. The app will make children more interactive, social and actively engaging in learning. Our main focus will be to support children and their parents through the learning center that will be effectively managed by the foundation. By providing educational opportunities to children, we work against the efforts to indoctrinate them into violent and destructive paths.

Roser Educare Foundation will also offer Life skills development, Mentor-ship and Leadership training to children at the learning center to encourage them to stay in school and succeed. Majority of children have lost motivation and learning performances have reduced because of school closures.

Our solution involves the use of technology with the primary intention of supporting the delivery of education programs and learning outcomes. Children learn best when learning tools are active, engaging, meaningful, socially interactive and guided by a specific goal. The use of school child-based facing technologies such as tablet-based learning is seen as away to develop digital literacy. Our target population is young disadvantaged children 6-12 years who lack basic education, have no access to digital learning resources and have been shut out of school because of the pandemic. The App will encourage children have enthusiasm for lifelong learning.

Mobile education apps are viable effective means of increasing access to basic education among children. We propose to conduct a study to determine the impact of education apps in increasing literacy and numeracy skills among disadvantaged children age 6-12 years living in the suburbs of Kampala- Uganda. The study seeks to establish the proof of using education apps as a means to enhance digital learning and support children who have been shut out of school due to the effects of COVID- 19 pandemic. 

The study results will lead to the development of a demand driven, culturally relevant and user friendly education app to enhance e-learning among children and bridge the digital divide between privileged and deprived children in Uganda and Africa at large.

We will partner with an app developer to develop the app. To determine the technical performance, data will be collected on usability, acceptability and cost effectiveness.

What makes our solution innovative is the use of technology-based education (Child Arise Digital App) to allow children centered leaning and improve their numeracy and literacy skills. Through innovation, mobile education apps are transforming the education industry in different parts of the world in terms of diversifying learning and creating an accessible teaching environment for most school learners. The poor national socio-economic infrastructure poses a challenge to quality learner support in developing countries like Uganda. Most learners are unable to access essential education resources. By investing in technology and software, children can develop their digital literacy skills which will set them up with the right foundations to succeed in the digital world.

Roser Education Foundation is a new start up Organisation in Uganda. During the Lock down, the founding members offered free face-to-face tutoring services to 15 children who could not afford E-learning following the national curriculum. The limited number of tutors willing to offer free tutoring service pushed us into the need to develop an education app that can offer free access to education for the children.

The Child Arise Digital App is a new innovation to be implemented by Roser Educare Foundation to tackle the challenge of few teachers and tutors in Uganda. The pilot project will cover 1000 children for a period of one year to assess the effectiveness of offering free education content through digital learning resources to children from underprivileged backgrounds. Once the modifications and iterations have been made after the user testing, the Education App will be made available to accommodate more children. 

Within the next five years, Roser Educare Foundation aims to bridge the digital divide by reaching over 5,000 children under the Child Arise Digital App program.

As an organization, the following key performance indicators will be used to measure the progress towards the goal;

The level of engagement will measure how the users engage with the app including how actively they use education app for study purposes.

The retention rate will measure the number of users that utilize the app on a regular basis. The higher the retention rate, the more positive implication of achieving the desired goal which is ensuring that every child is supported, nurtured and given equal and inclusive access to quality education

2 full-time staff

1 part-time staff

Our team is well positioned to deliver full time because of our past work experiences.  We are experienced with the use of computers and various software program.Two of the team members have certificate in Computer Applications and Systems. One of the team members has worked as a Research Assistant at Innovation for Poverty Action (IPA) conducting quantitative surveys using ODK data collection tool with the Eware housing project respondents.

Another team member has worked with National Identification and Registration Authority in Data Entry as an Enrollment Officer liaising with The District Information Technology Officer (DITO), Local Chairperson and Head teachers to schedule appointment for registration of learners aged five to eighteen years in schools all over the country which involved the use of Enrollment Kits to capture Bio metrics. This exercise revealed that majority of the children don't go to school  because high costs of scholastic materials, teacher absenteeism and poor education infrastructure.

As a team, we planned and offered free face-to-face tutoring services to children who could not afford E-learning during the pandemic. Teachers who were moving from home to home to offer teaching services were charging each child about $15 per week in order to survive and take care of their families. This was so expensive for most families. This limited number of tutors willing to offer free tutoring service pushed us into the need to develop an education app that can offer free access to education so that majority of the children are not left out.

Building a diverse, equitable and inclusive leadership team is essential for innovation because creativity and development of new ideas is fostered. Taking strengths from each individual team member provides a great approach in tackling tasks at hand and producing better results. Our approach is through promoting inclusive collaboration in the different departments and ensuring that every member is given the opportunity to actively participate and share their thoughts on various aspects. All members are given fair and equal opportunities to maximize their full potential in delivering expected outcomes.

Our goal as an organization is to support, nurture and ensure that every child has an equal and inclusive access to education. By aligning our leadership team on the goal, the organization will be able to build an inclusive work culture.

We are applying to solve to support our cause and provide us with the necessary resources that our organization requires to develop an education app that will help children from the poorest backgrounds access an education, improve their numeracy and literacy skills. This will bridge the digital divide between the privileged and unprivileged children in Uganda and across Africa.

If chosen, we plan to use the resources to invest in app development, register the organization, and procure computers, tablets, head sets, solar panels among others. We shall also rent a space to serve as a learning center to offer free class digital learning to children whose parents/ guardians cannot afford to send them to school.

An ideal partner or support will enable us to develop an education App for learners with the required software. This will include the features, curriculum and design of the app that is tailored to meet the education needs of children in Uganda and Africa at large.

We do not have any specific organization in mind. We seek to partner with an organization that is focused on bringing quality education to disadvantaged children. Having a partner that can contribute to our solution will bring hope to majority of children whose education has come to a standstill due to school closures.  By developing a user friendly education app that is designed to include the national curriculum, assessments tools and education games, we will be able to bring education closer to these children who have been deprived of an education. An established learning center effectively managed by the foundation will offer free digital learning to children aged 6-12 years to improve on their numeracy and literacy skills  and also keep them safe from social and environmental risk factors such as child labour, sexual abuse and early pregnancies among girls.

Roser Educare Foundation is seeking for a grant to support children in Uganda and across Africa. As the pandemic continues, education in poorer and developing countries will be disrupted greatly due to the digital divide. 80% of Uganda’s school-age children live in poverty. These generations of young children who are losing access to education are the future of the nation. During the last few months, we have been providing free learning resources to a small group of children whose parents could not afford E-learning and tutoring services. Teachers who were moving from home to home to offer teaching services were asking for a high fee about $15 per week and yet most children come from low- income families. As a team, this has pushed us into the need to develop an education app (Child Arise Digital App).

We seek to expand our operations by establishing a learning center that will offer free digital learning classes. Our solution involves the use of technology with the primary intention of supporting the delivery of education programs and learning outcomes. The user friendly Educational App will be designed to supplement learning out of school with guidance from an instructor, allow self teaching and foster children’s numeracy and literacy skills to bridge the digital divide. The objective of the initiative is to support children with poor numeracy and literacy skills at primary level who lack access to basic education. In Uganda, Only 1 in 4 children who starts primary school makes it to secondary school.

Uganda is one of the largest refugee hosting nations in the world, with over 1,482,101 refugees as of 2020 (UNCHR report). A recent study by World Health Organisation reveals that the pandemic has had a harmful impact on refugees around the world worsening the existing conditions they face such as lack of access to quality education and health care. This has exposed many children to risks of sexual abuse, gender based violence, early marriage and child labour.

Roser Educare Foundation believes in Education for All. If selected, we plan to support the education system through developing a user friendly education app. The app will include the national curriculum, assessments tools and education games. We will be able to bring education closer to children who have been deprived of an education. An established learning center effectively managed by the foundation will offer free digital learning to children aged 6-12 years to improve on their computer skills and inspire the next generation of digital thinkers/learners.  

They will learn various subjects like Mathematics, Science (Basic health care and Hygiene) and English. The learning center will serve as a safe place to keep the children away from social and environmental risk factors such as child labour, sexual abuse and early pregnancies among girls.

Refugee Children have a right to quality and inclusive education and unless efforts are made to enable this, it will be impossible to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 4 (Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.)

Roser Educare Foundation is seeking for a grant to support children in Uganda and across Africa. As the pandemic continues, education in poorer and developing countries will be disrupted greatly due to the digital divide. 80% of Uganda’s school-age children live in poverty. These generations of young children who are losing access to education are the future of the nation. During the last few months, we have been providing free learning resources to a small group of children whose parents could not afford E-learning and tutoring services. Teachers who were moving from home to home to offer teaching services were asking for a high fee about $15 per week and yet most children come from low- income families. As a team, this has pushed us into the need to develop an education app (Child Arise Digital App).

We seek to expand our operations by establishing a learning center that will offer free digital learning classes. Our solution involves the use of technology with the primary intention of supporting the delivery of education programs and learning outcomes. The user friendly Educational App will be designed to supplement learning out of school with guidance from an instructor, allow self teaching and foster children’s numeracy and literacy skills to bridge the digital divide. The objective of the initiative is to support children with poor numeracy and literacy skills at primary level who lack access to basic education. In Uganda, Only 1 in 4 children who starts primary school makes it to secondary school.

Roser Educare Foundation is seeking for a grant to support children in Uganda and across Africa. As the pandemic continues, education in poorer and developing countries will be disrupted greatly due to the digital divide. 80% of Uganda’s school-age children live in poverty. These generations of young children who are losing access to education are the future of the nation. During the last few months, we have been providing free learning resources to a small group of children whose parents could not afford E-learning and tutoring services. Teachers who were moving from home to home to offer teaching services were asking for a high fee about $15 per week and yet most children come from low- income families. As a team, this has pushed us into the need to develop an education app (Child Arise Digital App).

We seek to expand our operations by establishing a learning center that will offer free digital learning classes. Our solution involves the use of technology with the primary intention of supporting the delivery of education programs and learning outcomes. The user friendly Educational App will be designed to supplement learning out of school with guidance from an instructor, allow self teaching and foster children’s numeracy and literacy skills to bridge the digital divide. The objective of the initiative is to support children with poor numeracy and literacy skills at primary level who lack access to basic education. In Uganda, Only 1 in 4 children who starts primary school makes it to secondary school.