×

Our award-winning reporting has moved

Context provides news and analysis on three of the world’s most critical issues:

climate change, the impact of technology on society, and inclusive economies.

Recycled flip flops help Ugandan kids in school

by Katy Migiro | @katymigiro | Thomson Reuters Foundation
Wednesday, 23 November 2011 13:42 GMT

Most of Uganda's children never finish primary school

NAIROBI (TrustLaw) – Picture this. Ugandan children crowd underneath a tree to shelter from the searing sun. Their teacher reads them a story about Joanna and James throwing snowballs at each other.

Such incongruous scenes are common in many poor African countries where schools rely on charitable book donations from the West.

When Peace Corps volunteer Craig Esbeck from the United States saw the materials he was expected to use to teach young pupils in eastern Uganda, he decided he could do better.

He asked villagers to donate their old flip flops which he then used to make jigsaw letters that primary school children could use to learn the alphabet.

Buoyed by his success, Esbeck started to produce a variety of culturally-relevant games and charts for his young learners, using local materials like grain sacks and bottle tops.

And so in 2000 Mango Tree Educational Enterprises – which is now a TrustLaw Connect member – was born. Mango Tree received pro bono support from leading Ugandan law firm Mukiibi, Kawooya, Onyango and Co Advocates, having made applications for assistance with its shareholders agreement and governance manual, with finding out its legal position as a limited private company, and on whether it could win VAT exemption.

In 2002, Esbeck was elected to the Ashoka Fellowship, a group bringing together the world’s leading social entrepreneurs who are working to promote positive change.

The company now has 35 staff making over 2,000 educational products, such as maps, puppets, wall charts and flash cards, which are used by millions of Ugandan children.

Through small enterprises that Mango Tree supports, the materials are often made by people with disabilities, people living with HIV and by women.

TALKING ABOUT SAFE SEX

With its success, the company has expanded its horizons.

Mango Tree trains teachers to make lessons more creative, child-centred and fun, even with limited educational materials. Traditionally, teaching in Ugandan schools tends to focus on rote-learning and cramming for exams – a hangover from colonial days.  

It also provides tools to health professionals to help them communicate with clients about sensitive topics like HIV/AIDS.

Community health workers have 50 minutes to find and discuss a topic which clients are concerned about.

Using Mango Tree’s flip chart, the health worker can quickly narrow down the discussion to a relevant topic.

“If you are (terminally) sick, it’s more interesting, for example, to talk about dying, your will… It’s more relevant for an adolescent to talk about safe sex,” said Guustaaf van de Mheen, executive director of Mango Tree.

The front of each page shows an illustrated picture while the back has guidelines and questions for the health worker.

“The core strength of our company is to make a complex message understandable for a low literacy audience,” said van de Mheen.

“The strength of what we do is the picture says it all.”

SIGN LANGUAGE

Another groundbreaking project is teaching sign language to the parents of deaf children.

“One of the major obstacles for the integration of deaf children in the community is they are not able to communicate (with those who don't sign),” said van de Mheen.

“They get alienated from their background and their culture.”

Deaf children are usually sent to boarding schools, where they learn to sign with their teacher and peers. When they go home for the holidays, they run into problems.

“The child can be very bright but is not able to express him or herself to his or her parents,” said van de Mheen.

The parents are given seven sign-language training sessions, each lasting two hours. They learn 150 signs, which is enough to construct simple sentences.

Mango Tree also gives the children flashcards to practice signing with their parents at home, with a picture representing the word on one side and the sign for it on the other.

NEW PROJECT

In 2009, Esbeck handed over the reins of Mango Tree to van de Mheen so that he could work on another project: improving mother-tongue literacy.

Most of Uganda’s children never finish primary school. Many drop out in grade four, around the age of 8, when the curriculum switches into English.

Children find the transition easier, and are more likely to stay in school, if they start reading in their mother tongue in lower grades.

Previously, there were hardly any learning materials in these languages. Some were not even written down.

“We believe, if they are literate in Leb-Lango, then transitioning into English will not be a problem,” said Dennis Akaa, project manager of the Lango Literacy Project.

(Editing by Rebekah Curtis)

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

-->