Over a fifth of children throughout Africa are not enrolled in school, a number believed to now be north of 63 million children. A staggering 250 million children who have been enrolled in school for 1,000 days can’t read, write or perform basic math. Each day that passes marks the denial of a basic human right for a too large a population of our world.
Building Tomorrow identifies community leaders who want to see education change for the better and trains these local leaders to serve as teams of Community Education Volunteers (CEVs). CEVs are charged with sensitizing communities to the value of education, enrolling out‐of‐school children and breaking down barriers to ensure all children, including girls and students with disabilities, are enrolled and attending school. Additionally, CEVs will be trained on how best to work alongside existing teachers and community leaders to provide tutoring and in-class assistance to ensure their intervention enrolls and retains students while improving student learning outcomes and life skills.
To date we have recruited over 2,000 community volunteers to carry out this work throughout underserved districts of Uganda. However, we envision scaling our CEV approach to establish CEV training centers with the capacity to recruit and train tens of thousands of CEVs. These CEVs will be active throughout their respective communities in the important quest to ensure all children, regardless of their ability, are enrolled in school. We envision this approach could eventually grow internationally and, by leverage peer organizations and willing governments, these centers located in a host of countries could build the world’s largest cadre of volunteers dedicated to education equality and quality. By investing in well-trained, driven, indigenous volunteers, the audacious thought of every child enrolled in school throughout sub-Saharan Africa can become the greatest success story of our generation.
