When schools were closed in March 2020 as a result of the Covid19 pandemic, Milly nearly lost hope because she couldn’t believe that her children were to stay out of school for a period she could not tell.
“When Coronavirus broke out in 2020, my children came back home. As a parent, I was glad to have my children around but as a teacher, I was worried. I could not believe that children were not going to school,” Milly explains.
Therefore, as a way of alleviating parents’ fears about the learning ability of their children during the lockdown, Share An Opportunity Uganda (SAO Uganda) introduced home-based learning. Through this programme, communities were supported with resource centres where children could meet and be taught. The home learning activities were conducted by trained ECD caregivers and Cluster Level Associations (CLA) members. Milly as a CLA chairperson had gained skills in monitoring health, education and child protection as part of her training for the position.
“During the time of lockdown, I was able to serve my community in ECD because of the skills I had gained from SAO Uganda.
‘’I thank the organization because of the idea of home-based learning and the resource centre in our community; my children were able to study and revised during the lockdown. My children also improved in the English speaking because of the daily reading and now that they have gone back to school, they are performing well.”
She added that the CLA members now plan on opening a beading training centre that will support all the school dropouts from Abim and the Karamoja region.
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