tusome

Education is the best investment we shall ever give to children and adults, however if its not equally distributed in terms of affordability, quality and accessibility it creates a big opportunity gab especially between the urban centers and deep remote areas.

More than 60,000-70,000 students drop out of High school each year according to the Ministry of Education and sports in Uganda. In 10 years this will be more than 700,000 students dropping out of school meaning there will be an increasing number of unemployable youth who make 78% of the Uganda’s population that is more than 42 million people.85% of the drop out is attributed to expensive, long distance and poor quality education services especially in rural areas. This is accompanied by absenteeism of teachers, teacher strikes and disease outbreaks like the current COVID-19 pandemic.

Nakivale refugee settlement only has over 23,000 youth between 15-24 years but has, only One secondary school accessed in more than 3 km from the main settlement Centre yet students sit for the same exams with the rest in the country.

This is why we came up with an inclusive and affordable education system that not only solves the costly and inaccessible education services but also incorporating life skills to drop outs hence increasing their self-employability.

We deliver assurance for better performance and sustainable generation through extending affordable quality education services towards the least academically served areas especially refugee settlements and rural areas for high school class based lessons incorporated with life application of class content.

We serve high school students and school dropouts between 13-20 years and adults between 20-45 years who undertake learn to earn skills in agriculture, food security, health and environmental conservation.

High-ranking teachers and skills experts in the country design lessons that are distributed through online platforms and offline in form of customized study tablets (accompanied with a small solar plate for changing in rural communities that have no electricity, MP3 players and solar powered virtual learning centers. DVD tapes all in pre-recorded video format.

Since our main customer segment (rural and remote areas) doesn’t have sufficient access to online platforms and smartphones, we came up with an inclusive yet affordable means to make education accessible to very one. We establish solar powered centers and equip them with simple DVD players and computers where students can subscribe and attend lessons of their choices from high class teachers at USD10 per month hence making learning affordable, quality and inclusive for all.

Our main target beneficiary is a High school student between 13-20 years in rural and refugee

Settlement areas that can’t afford more than USD 450 a year on education, walking more than 5

Km to access education services while admiring to excel in their final exams to pursue their

Desired life dreams, who can afford USD10 monthly in our solar powered virtual lesson centers

Individually or is under a sponsored education program like UNHCR, World Vision and other

Education based NGOs.

Our second target group are youth between 18-45 years in rural areas and refugee camps who can’t afford more than USD 100 to gain desired skills but can afford USD 10 to purchase our pre-recorded learn to earn skills like soap making, books making, snacks, crafts and are yearning to transform their knowledge into social businesses.

All our team members are aligned to the vision due to a shared and diverse backgrounds both from the formal education setup and informal section due to their experience while we were studying. Some are coming from politically affected areas especially the refugees, others faced vast rural problems and if we don’t act towards this, then our brothers and sisters are going to experience the same pain or more.thats why we have a shared vision which we don’t want to lose.We are backed up by an experienced Board comprising of business mentors, marketiers, finance, business consultants and education specialists.

• KISITU ALOYSIOUS: Founder and Team Leader of TUSOME, a Pan African Entrepreneurship AWARD WINNER in education 2019 with social innovation academy, 6 Years working experience with JANGU E.V, a German education sponsorship lead in Uganda, 4 years of working experience as community lead at SOCIAL INNOVATION ACADEMY Uganda; creating a safe environment for love, trust and harmony within the organization.      
• KATUSHABE JOSEPH:Co-founder and team leader of tusome ,FINANCIAL OFFICER,Business developer. Accounting expert, holds a higher (Advanced) Diploma in Accounting. Uganda Martyrs University, 2020 Tony Elumelu foundation Fellow. Certificate in the social applied innovation, Anzisha 2019 finalist, Earth Tech innovation program Fellow and Watson accelerator Fellow, SDG advocate.With massive accounting experience of 6 years And five other experienced team members in various fields like LEGAL, QUALITY ASSURANCE, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT, and VIDEOGRAPHY.

• Victor Mafigi Turatsinze, a Congolese refugee, Founder and Team leader of “Unleashed “a free learning space within Nakivale Refugee settlement that empowers refugees to unleash their potentials to create social enterprises, with 5 years of experience in social entrepreneurship.
• Akello Patricia Ritah:Secretary, Education expert with experience in delivering comprehensive teaching, article and literary works. Certified teacher. Holds a B.ED English language & literature in English, Makerere University, Kampala Uganda

Our motivation to join the Solve’s 2022 Global Challenges programme is with hopes to We are looking forward to make a difference in Africa not only Uganda, however to make a difference in entire Africa we need to equip my mind with the knowledge that will keep me a head of the game, we believe that Uganda and Africa need a change and youth of the this generation are the one to provide it, The former UN secretary once said that we are the first generation that can eradicate poverty and the last generation that can fight climate change, the Solve’s 2022 Global Challenges network of experts, mentors and potential investors we  believe that it’s the a big opportunity for the Tusome team to execute and achieve their target goal of supporting refugees and rural students have equal ,affordable, inclusive accessible and quality education in Uganda and Africa through the mentorship and financial support from the from the program network we believe that we can be able in three years to create more than 15 solar powered virtual learning centers and 150 customized study tablets ((accompanied with a small solar plate for changing in rural communities that have no electricity and DVD tapes) in both refugee settlement and rural communities, this will automatically create employment opportunities to more than 150 community members, reach more than 15,000 rural students, improve filming and edit equipment's to increase delivery periods. Every support invested in Tusome, makes a refugee or rural student access better, relevant and inclusive education services for a full year without necessarily moving long distances or missing school due to teacher strikes, poor education infrastructures and corrupt education system. This will enable us make the project run sustainably to scale and attract more impact

Inclusive ,Affordable yet High Quality accessible and Repeatable video lessons that don’t require data charges for offline modules in solar powered virtual centers for refugee and rural students, this is followed by Our customized tablets accompanied with a small solar panel for changing in rural communities that are off the grid and they comprise of not only all class based lessons but also Learn to Earn Entrepreneurial skills and critical thinking challenges designed by business practioners and mentors .

In addition, Rural students and refugees who walk long distances, with no access to smart phones and electricity are able to study through our pre-recorded offline video tutorials in solar powered and computer equipped virtual learning centers.

Pre-recorded audios from different subjects are put on portable MP3 players to suit the visually impaired students hence leaving no one behind.

This serves the gap left out by other e learning ventures that mainly focus on online and expensive education services hence leaving the most affected areas (Rural and Refugees) behind.

On top of that, We create employment opportunities to the school drop outs through extending to them affordable learn to earn skills through offline videos from skills experts that would be expensive for them in other formal education setup.

We do short (usually 5-10 minutes) topical introduction documentaries of every new topic about application of such content in real life.

We target to establish 15 solar powered virtual learning centers in Nakivale, kyaka and Bidi Bidi Refugee settlements, 2 learning centers in Namilyango Mpigi District and lastly 2 centers in Nkozi Sub County in the first 2 years of operation.

We have identified the most affected areas and our first priority being Nakivale, kyaka and Bidi Bidi Refugee settlements, the central part of Uganda, Northern, Eastern and Western regions respectively.

We have arranged documents to propose a partnership with the Office of the Prime Minister specifically for Refugee settlements and as well partnering with education-based institutions that desire to assure a better future for their beneficiaries.

In 5 years, we target to establish 45 virtual centers all over Refugee settlements and the host rural communities in Uganda. The model can be replicated all over Africa since we nearly share the same problems but only differ in content.

After creating the whole secondary school content, we desire to incorporate offline customized tablets that can be sold at an affordable price to especially the urban students who access electricity which will support us to sustain the project for a bigger impact. To spread all over Uganda, East Africa and Africa at large, we plan to give out our model in franchise setup where we shall give technical support to interested partners with a license.

Measureability of our impact is as follows:

Number of students enrolled in our virtual centers.

Number of virtual centers created in rural areas and refugee settlements.

Number of DVDs, Mp3 and Tablets sold for study purposes.

Number of school dropouts compared before our services and after services.

Yearly based Performance change.

Number of students participated in our community outreaches organized.

We also measure our impact the annual report from the ministry of education and sport on the performance results from the final examinations organized by the government for the students

We also measure the impact through annual based performance change for the refugees and rural community students (comprision before our service and after)

Number of social enterprises created by school dropouts after receiving our services.

here down in the detailed theory of change of the project

rural and refugee Students access lessons from solar powered virtual learning centers in rural communities that are off the grid and refugee camps through DVDs and MP3s for visually impaired students, customized study Tablets accompanied with a solar plate for charging for  the rural communities that are off the grid for students(urban and rural students) in our academic video libraries.

All our team members are aligned to the vision due to a shared and diverse backgrounds both from the formal education setup and informal section due to their experience while we were studying. Some are coming from politically affected areas especially the refugees, others faced vast rural problems and if we don’t act towards this, then our brothers and sisters are going to experience the same pain or more.Thats why we have a shared vision which we don’t want to lose.Staring from our recruitment processes, we advance an equally distributed opportunity for everyone irrespectful of their gender,race,religion,location,social economic background and other areas.Our team comprises of ladies and gentlemnt whre our recruitment policy advocates for not less than 30% of the team for female members on both the operatig team and the Board of Governors.The team comprises of Refugees (Congolese from nakivale refugee camp)and south sudans from BID BID refugee settlement,One member from Netherlands,others from Uganda with vast pool of experience in education,IT,Finace,Marketing,Videography and business development.

We deliver assurance for better performance and sustainable generation through extending affordable quality education services towards the least academically served areas especially refugee settlements and rural areas for high school class based lessons incorporated with life application of class content so we believe that Solar powered centers are the best way to foster e-learning in rural areas since it is a one-time investment with limited maintenance costs. Virtual centers act as second best alternative to normal schools and can be replicated in almost every village. Since it requires one-time investment students will be required to pay a little amount for maintenance of the centers.

With our solar powered  centers, a rural student can easily access quality education at only USD 120 a year compared to USD 450 required from competitors that’s why we target a parent and education based NGO with a High school student between 13-20 years in rural and refugee settlement areas who cant afford more than USD 450 a year on education, whose student is walking more than 5 km to access education services while admiring to excel in their final exams to pursue their desired life dreams, who can afford USD10 monthly in our solar powered virtual lesson centers and secondly one who can pay USD 150 for a customized study tablet.

Our solution supply chain starts with Lesson plan, identifying a quality teacher, filming lessons, video editing, proof reading, packaging, marketing and distribution.

We record lessons on DVD tapes, MP3 Players and as well transfer to computers and customized tablets.

Students access lessons from solar powered virtual centers in rural areas and through DVDs and study Tablets for urban students in our academic video libraries.

We target to acquire this through partnering with teachers, setting up well equipped filming area and studio and as well establishing video libraries for urban students and virtual centers in rural areas

We have identified the most affected areas and our first priority being Nakivale, kyaka and Bidi Bidi Refugee settlements, the central part of Uganda, Northern, Eastern and Western part respectively.

Partnering with education-based institutions that desire to assure a better future for their beneficiaries will back this up.

We target to establish 5 virtual learning centers in Nakivale, kyaka and Bidi Bidi Refugee settlements, 1 learning center in Namilyango Mpigi District and lastly 1 center in Nkozi Sub County in the First Year.

We target to reach out to more than 5000 students all over refugee centers in the First year and double the figures in the following year cumulatively.

Our business financial plan is as follows.

1. Students in rural and refugee settlement areas pay a monthly subscription currently at USD10.

2. We sell customized study tablets accompanied with a small solar panel for changing in rural communities that have no electricity and DVD taps and MP3 players

3. We offer premium services to students in terms of teacher consultations, customized lessons, student’s online seminars and mentorship.

4. We do school related adverts in our videos hence generating operational capital and we plan to reach our customers through our social media platforms, door to door, community outreaches, and also making adverts on our local radios.

We also consider donations and grants as our sources of funds .

we have managed to generate revenue of 14300USD,recieved a grant funding of 5000USD from a Germany founded organisation called jangu e.v,personal saving from the founders 1200USD

Partnerships with established centers that are equipped with computers has made it easy for us to upload content where students can access it from.

We have also partnered with our content designers from UK englishclass101.com who are designing daily English lessons that are downloadable and this cuts more than 70% of costs that would be incurred to create such content.

Partnerships with an organization called Jangu international that has supported with space for setting up the office of the project and setting up one solar powered virtual learning centre.with this we have managed to make an impact as follows:

1450 students have participated in our program since as detailed: 440 students have purchased our customized study tablets (accompanied with a small solar plate for changing in rural communities that have no electricity and DVD tapes, 257 have gone through teacher consultations and free resource via the What Sapp platform, 135 have engaged with us through Facebook, 618 orders waiting for recording of content, 50 youths have been able to have access to Skills trainings, couching and mentorship for adults to enable them start their own enterprises in Uganda.