Breaking the cycle

In Uganda the average primary school dropout rate is 45% but this rate is much higher amongst girls. This can be due to to a lack of basic needs like good nutrition, clothing and child labour, or cultural reasons such as domestic chores, child marriages and teenage pregnancies. Even if they do attend, it may not always be an attractive place to be with a lack of role models, career guidance, educational materials and gender inequality. There are also common cultural attachments to address given that parents and communities see girls as only a source of a dowry and less important than boys.

Charles has been a direct witness of school dropout rates. He started primary school with 100 children, and went to high school with just five. Now a science teacher and son of a clan leader, he wanted to implement a strategy that would not only attract kids to school and keep them there but shift the mindset for the entire community; showing them that girls can do what boys can do and be equally as important within the community if given the right education. Since 2019, Charles has been using football to help solve these educational challenges and longstanding inequalities. 

Creating a level playing field

Charles’ passion for football dates back to his school days when he was appointed as one of the team coaches, not because he could play very well, but because he loved the game and made every effort to mobilize resources to support the team’s regular activities. He believes football provides both physical and mental training and is the perfect game to empower girls to protect themselves, think about their future and draw inspiration from the international female football stars.

Charles set some ambitious targets; to reduce school dropouts, early child pregnancies and marriages amongst school going girls and boys in South Division Kumi municipality, from the current 80% dropout rate to 30% by the end of 2021. His strategy rotates around attracting kids to school, keeping them at school and making sure they progress to the next level of education, using football to help them get sports scholarships to High School. 

Charles and his team of volunteers (who are increasing in number every month) have currently established three girls football teams in three different primary schools in Kumi district with activities divided between football trainings (around 20 sessions in a month), weekly matches and life skills training sessions. Each school team has a teacher coach for football and a life teacher coach who monitors their academic performance and acts as a mentor. Parents are involved through monthly parent meetings to discuss challenges and the community is involved through girls’ football tournaments and community engagement sessions addressing issues on girls’ education and gender equality.

Excelling on and off the field

Since he started the programme, school attendance has increased to 89% and currently, over 200 pupils from three different schools are taking part in the project. And its success has led Charles and his colleagues needing to regulate the participants, as they don’t have the facilities to accept more children. What’s more, six of the 47 girls enrolled in the programme in 2019 have obtained full sports scholarships in top Ugandan Schools. Charles aims to eventually cover 45 schools and increase the number of pupils participating by 250 in 2022, 350 in 2023 and 450 in 2024.

Charles and his colleagues started with addressing school dropout rates but they have big plans to extend the project and create more facilities. They wish to create a boarding house at school in which the girls could stay overnight, allowing them more time to study, avoid domestic chores, and reduce the risk of sexual assault. Charles believes in the future of his community, and on the importance of empowering girls to create future leaders that will maintain and improve the sustainability of the community, “A community where people are not educated can never be a sustainable community.”