An update from Spore on the African Rural University covered earlier:
Measurable ImpactSet up by the Uganda Rural Development and Training Program (URDT), the university primarily receives students graduating from URDT Girls’ School, though others are also admitted. It focuses on developing skills in agriculture, business and leadership. Key to this process is having a curriculum that is relevant to the needs of rural families, unlike conventional curricula, which frequently fail to prepare students for working in rural areas.
Immaculate Nyagol, explaining how to make kitchen gardens © ARU/J Akello
A community-based approach
ARU students are currently enrolled in two academic programmes, which comprise a Certificate in Rural Entrepreneurship and Business Management and a Bachelor of Science in Technologies for Rural Transformation. The curriculum for both courses is 60% theory and 40% practical, with students undertaking projects in their villages to put into practice what they have learnt. A lecturer is assigned to give advice for the community-based projects and students are graded for both theory and practical work. However, what matters most is the impact the students accomplish on the ground.
When Immaculate Nyagol, a 23 year old BSc. student, initiated a kitchen garden project in her village, she found that men were reluctant to work with her. She therefore approached wives from 10 households and, using her home garden as a demonstration plot, taught the women how to make kitchen gardens. Once the women began selling vegetables and earning their own income, the men became much more involved in the project. “If they (men) undermine me, I work with their wives who pull them in,” she says. The women were so impressed with Nyagol’s efforts that before she returned to university for further studies, they visited her house to thank her.More here