NEMMIA insight & initiative:
We found that rural primary pupils are often disadvantaged relative to urban pupils in the PLE, because in many rural homes, no English is used. This gave birth to the idea to organise an English-literacy mentoring programme, which particularly uses the holiday-time of these pupils to equip them with better English skills, hence more equal opportunity.

We piloted the programme with 25 pupils in Kisinga. When the COVID19-pandemic hit, we had to disrupt the initiative (alongside Uganda closing schools for over 2 years - one of the world's longest school closures during the pandemic). 

Background: Primary schooling in Uganda spans 7 years with centrally administered Primary Leaving Examination (PLE). The Uganda National Education Board (UNEB) is in charge of PLE; PLE-results shape which secondary schools a pupil can choose. 

Since 2007, the first three primary years (P1-P3) are taught in local language (background see e. g. here).

Over 40 local languages are spoken in Uganda, but for practically all of them, only few written materials are available. For Lhukonzo, Fr. Balinandi Kambale created a rather comprehensive dictionary. NEMMIA has availed  copies of this work (1 was donated and 1 was purchased). Our coaches use it as a standard reference for their pupils. 

Bantu is one of the main language families across Sub-Sahara-Africa. In Uganda, Bantu languages account for almost 2 in 3 speakers.  One of the 'Bantu family members' is Lhukonzo. About a million people living in Western Uganda and Northern DR Congo are native speakers of Lhukonzo in its various dialects (details see here).