Equipping disadvantaged children with skills for a better future

Football as a medium to restore self-confidence, self-esteem, team spirit and joie de vivre to severely traumatised AIDS orphans and street children, or to make them experience it for the first time: Aktion Canchanabury and its partners have had very good experiences with this in recent years. Our partner for this project is a small NGO, the People Concern Children's Project (PCCP) in the Ugandan capital Kampala, with whom we have been working since 2014. In 2006, PCCP started a small education centre in the middle of the slum in Kibuti (district of Kampala) with three volunteers, where they initially taught 26 children to read and write. By the end of that year, the number of children had already risen to 100. In 2009, PCCP was officially recognised as a "community-based organisation".

PCCP offers the children various fields of learning and experience in the area of school-based care. Here they can discover and develop their abilities and skills, strengthen their self-confidence and develop their own perspectives for their future. Most of the children and young people in the catchment area of the project would normally not have a chance for school or other education due to various circumstances (death of parents due to AIDS or accidents, neglect, absolute poverty, etc.).

PCCP now has ten teachers and around 180 students. Children from preschool age to fourth grade are taught reading/writing, English, mathematics, social studies and science. Those who successfully pass this can then continue their education at a public school.

In addition to purely school-based activities, all children in the slum are also offered recreational activities. These include, among others, a jewellery and shoemaking workshop under professional guidance, where the children learn handicraft skills. Furthermore, various sports activities, computer training, environmental training with tree-planting activities, as well as community clean-up activities in the slum and a theatre and dance workshop are offered.