by Whitney Warren and Emmanuel Kizaale, Building Tomorrow

Community Education Volunteers: A Grassroots Approach to Learning

Building Tomorrow’s Community Education Teams have reached over half a million learners across rural Uganda with our signature Roots to Rise (R2R) foundational literacy and numeracy camps, cutting learning poverty for more than three-quarters of our learners.  A vital component of these teams are our Community Education Volunteers (CEVs), local residents of the communities we serve and the heart of our community-powered model. CEVs are mobilized by Building Tomorrow Fellows—dynamic Ugandan university graduates—and work alongside other community members, teachers, school leadership, and local officials to enhance community-led education in the rural areas we work in. To date, Building Tomorrow has recruited over 14,000 CEVs and has 800 Community Education Teams active in 2024.

Responding to Educational Challenges: COVID-19 and Beyond

CEVs have been at work in Uganda since 2015, when Building Tomorrow Fellows identified the need for additional support to reach more children and to put the community at the core of the solution to ensure lasting impact. CEVs became grassroots education extension agents, and this model was further adapted during COVID-19, when Uganda faced the longest school closures globally. CEVs were able to ensure children still had access to learning in safe, outdoor settings through what we call community camps.

Prior to schools closing in Uganda, more than 83% of primary school-aged learners, approximately 7.3M children, lacked foundational literacy and numeracy skills (World Bank, 2019). Without the ability to read, write, and do basic math, these learners are less likely to advance to the next grade level and more likely to drop out of school, impeding academic success and limiting prospects for future employment. CEVs served as a safeguard for access to educational opportunities, even in the face of school closures, and continue to play a critical role post-COVID, expanding the corps of trained instructors who can lead R2R lessons.

The efficacy of our CEVs at delivering high-quality lessons was demonstrated in a multi-country randomized controlled trial (RCT) by Youth Impact, which found that just 160 minutes of phone-based lessons delivered by CEVs led to learning gains equivalent to 1.1 learning-adjusted years of schooling (NBER, 2023).

CEVs help mobilize their communities around education and multiply the community assets toward education. Together with local stakeholders, these implementers facilitate R2R literacy and numeracy lessons, enroll out-of-school children in school, build the capacity of school leadership, and champion inclusivity. CEVs have proven to be an impactful intervention and have the potential to be a valuable solution for communities looking to center local voices and support more learners.

Stories of Impact: Transforming Lives Through Education

Read below the impact of CEVs’ collaboration with families and communities, exemplified in the story of Sarah, a Building Tomorrow Fellow and her work with Lawrence, a child living with a disability, who had been out of school for 6 years.

As part of her core duties as a Building Tomorrow Fellow, Sarah frequently visits households to identify out-of-school children and re-enroll them. It was during one of these visits in April of 2023 that Sarah first met Lawrence. Instead of attending school, he was at home, assisting his mother with household chores. This struck Sarah as unusual for a 14-year-old boy, who would typically have been in school at that time. Her curiosity prompted her to approach the family. After learning of Lawrence’s disability and the adversity he faced, Sarah asked Lawrence’s family a pivotal question: if a wheelchair were available, would they permit Lawrence to resume his education? The prospect sparked hope in Lawrence’s mother, and she welcomed the suggestion with enthusiasm.

Leaning on the local Community Education Team, Sarah rallied the community to address Lawrence’s educational hiatus. Through collective resource mobilization with local leaders and community members, Sarah led the team in successfully raising the funds needed to acquire a wheelchair for Lawrence, marking the first step in his journey back to school.

Before Lawrence could resume his schooling journey, however, Sarah’s immediate goal was to comprehensively assess Lawrence’s learning levels in order to place him in the correct grade level. In February 2024, Lawrence reported to school for the first time in six years. He has said he wants to be a teacher when he grows up to help other children like him learn.

Since joining Building Tomorrow’s Fellowship in 2023, Sarah has reached almost 1,500 children with Building Tomorrow’s foundational learning program Roots to Rise, 11 of whom are living with disabilities. She has enrolled 566 out-of-children in school and recruited and trained 40 CEVs, lay members of the community who are passionate about education.”

Building Capacity for Long-term Educational Transformation

The most successful Community Education Teams have clear roles and responsibilities, build the necessary capacity across their teams, and have a strengths-based approach to collaboration.  This enables an effective learning team approach that is transforming lives, schools and communities.  You can read more about a learning team approach here, and reach out to the Education Workforce team at the Learning Generation Initiative for more information.

Photo credit and caption: CEV Kevine Nandaula delivers a literacy camp in her backyard in Nakaseke District, Building Tomorrow