Target group

Students

The main target group is orphans from the Bethany Village Orphanage and other less advantaged children who, due to mental or financial circumstances have less or no possibilities of attending a higher education. These children will receive a more in-depth agricultural education, resembling a vocational education.

The age of the students will be 14 to 18 years old and 16 to 20 teenagers per year will benefit from the project. The percentage male / female will be considered and will be around 60 /40. Most children are from rural areas.

Due to trauma’s, such as losing parents through AIDS, war and extreme poverty, these children have often difficulties at school. Some started attending school later than usual and are lagging behind in the programme. All children who enter the project will have finished primary school, but there will be a number of children who have special needs. The training will be very practical and a ‘special needs teacher’, whom is already working at Bethany Village School, will also help out.

In Uganda, government farm schools exist for this target group, but these are often filled with trainees waiting to enter other vocational education. In this way the government schools are missing their main goal and especially in the remote region of Bethany Village an alternative is needed.

The students will be selected by a special committee consisting of teachers of the ARM school, Ugandan project officers and representatives of the management of Bethany Village. A list of selection criteria will be developed, which will use indicators like marks, but also qualitative information about the child’s situation.

Primary school children

Uganda has a good national curriculum for agriculture, but many schools don’t have money to implement this curriculum because the practical part (a school farm) is too expensive. Therefore the farming project is a good opportunity for Bethany Village Primary School to improve the quality of their education.

The project aims to have 100 primary school children in the age of 10 and 11 years old at the farm, within the second project year. These children receive a number of practical lessons to complement their curriculum for agriculture. Some lessons will be adapted to the situation and some new will be designed, since there are not many lessons on pigs.