Every Child Can Learn

Approximately 16% of the world population lives with a form of disability (1). This includes difficulties and disabilities in learning, with an example like dyslexia affecting about 9-12% globally (2). Yet, inclusive education for persons with disabilities is a relatively recent concept that is still a work in progress in every country that is making efforts to turn it into reality. Several milestones were reached before inclusive education became a fully defined approach with practical guidelines, such as the Salamanca Declaration and Framework for Action in 1994 and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) in 2008. In 2016, General Comment 4 to article 24 of the UNCRPD offered a first of a kind definition and explanation of inclusive education that is currently being used as a worldwide standard. 

Despite Uganda’s ratification of the UNCRPD and its Persons with Disabilities Act (2019), a concerning oversight persists regarding the educational support for children with disabilities in general and learning difficulties and disabilities in particular. Inclusive education is yet to be defined and described in Uganda’s National Inclusive Education Policy - currently being finalized under the leadership of the Special Needs & Inclusive Education Department of Uganda’s Ministry of Education & Sports. Practical challenges to implementing inclusive education in Uganda include constraints in human, financial and other tangible resources, knowledge gaps, and unsupportive attitudes and beliefs. Yet, this is a pressing issue, as the 2017 Uganda Functional Difficulties Survey reveals that approximately 7% (5-17 years) of the 19.9 million children in Uganda live with one or more disabilities and 11.8% experience a disability related to learning (3). 

A substantial deficit in knowledge exists regarding identifying and supporting children with learning difficulties and disabilities, particularly at primary school level. A 2023 baseline survey by Backup Uganda in Gulu District and City highlighted a critical gap in understanding, with less than 25% of teachers and school administrators knowledgeable about learning difficulties and disabilities like dyslexia (21.3%), dyscalculia (9.8%), autism (19.6%) and AD(H)D (11.6%). Among parents and caregivers, only 36% had identified specific learning difficulties and disabilities among people they know, while 28.6% had offered support. Our Every Child Can Learn approach addresses these gaps by offering remote, convenient training to primary school teachers and administrators via our ODII (Optimizing the Development of Inclusive Instruction) blended package, and by making our Every Child Can Learn community podcast episodes available to parents and caregivers in multiple languages. Through this approach, teachers, school administrators, parents and caregivers learn how to recognize signs of possible learning difficulties and disabilities in children as early as possible, how to offer individualized support from their various roles, and where to look for more help when needed.

1. World Health Organization (2023). Disability Fact Sheet. Accessed via https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/disability-and-health.

2. European Dyslexia Association (2020). What is dyslexia. Accessed via https://eda-info.eu/what-is-dyslexia/.

3. UBOS (2017). Uganda Functional Difficulties Survey 2017. Uganda: Kampala.

The Every Child Can Learn approach consists of two core, complementary elements: the ODII blended training package and the Every Child Can Learn community podcast.

The ODII (Optimizing the Development of Inclusive Instruction) blended training package strengthens teachers’ and administrators’ capacity in inclusive education at remote primary schools in Uganda, benefiting children with learning difficulties and disabilities in particular. The package pairs interactive video workshops with workbooks and printed training guides. Schools can use their own device(s) to follow the workshops or borrow them from Backup Uganda. ODII enables teachers and school administrators to follow the 9 sessions of our training program towards an inclusive, school-based support system independently, remotely, and at their own convenience. It equips them with knowledge and skills in identifying and supporting children with learning difficulties and disabilities in particular, while growing in their ability to teach all children inclusively based on the principles of Universal Design for Learning and reasonable accommodation. Through peer mentoring, teachers help each other to get familiar with the practical application of their new knowledge and skills. Our team follows up with the participating schools through monthly phone calls, termly in-person learning & evaluation sessions and occasional lesson observations. An Inclusive Education Committee (IEC) chaired by the head teacher is formed at each school at the beginning of the partnership. The IEC ensures that teachers, parents and caregivers get continuous support from them while helping children with learning difficulties and disabilities, linking them to health facilities for assessment and support. After 1 school year, each school's IEC assumes responsibility for managing all inclusive education activities at the school. Backup Uganda continues to follow up with IECs, attends meetings when requested and offers consulting support for specific cases.

The Every Child Can Learn community podcast strengthens parents’ and caregivers’’ awareness and knowledge of learning difficulties and disabilities. All episodes are available on www.backupuganda.org/learning. The information that the podcast episodes convey, helps listeners in the early identification of specific learning difficulties and disabilities in children in their schools, homes, and communities. Ultimately, it allows listeners to offer children with learning difficulties and disabilities effective support toward achieving their goals in education and in life. To date, we have produced and distributed 28 episodes in English and Acoli online and offline within Gulu district, Northern Uganda. Every month, we record, edit, translate and distribute a new episode. Episodes can be played on any device that has a speaker function and memory space or a provision for external memory use. In the next 3 years, we intend to translate the current and future episodes to all local languages used in Northern Uganda, including languages used by the vast refugee population settled along the borders with South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Our solution primarily targets children with learning difficulties and disabilities, who are particularly underserved due to the ‘invisibility’ and therefore under identification of the challenges they face. As mentioned above, this is linked to a widespread knowledge gap among teachers, administrators, parents and caregivers: (early) identification can only be done if you know what to look out for. As a consequence, children who experience these difficulties and disabilities are often labelled ‘dull’, ‘slow’ and ‘lazy’ and do not receive the support they need to reach their full potential in learning and in life. Instead, they are ignored, punished and ridiculed and do not progress as much in their education as they could if they were identified and included effectively.

With our solution, we specifically target government-aided primary schools in the Northern Region of Uganda, which tend to serve learners from families in lower income brackets, especially in rural areas. In the Acholi and Lango Sub Regions in particular, this includes learners who form the second generation of war-affected individuals, experiencing the effects of an ongoing economical, social and mental recovery process. We do believe that our solution has the potential to be scaled up beyond the Northern Region and Uganda’s national borders.

While the ODII blended training package and the Every Child Can Learn community podcast do not reach children directly, through their teachers, school administrators, parents and caregivers, they create a lasting impact that benefits both the current generation of learners and the next generations to come. ODII in particular helps establish a permanent support system at each school, consisting of early identification of possible learning difficulties and disabilities in children, inclusive teaching approaches, continuous professional development and peer mentoring, an internal pathway for additional learning support and adequate referral skills. The podcast enhances this by enabling parents and caregivers to play an active role in the identification process, provide additional learning support at home, stimulate a positive attitude to learning, connect with their children’s schools to encourage an inclusive learning environment and search for additional specialist support when necessary. So far, we have measured an increase of listeners identifying children with learning difficulties and disabilities from 33% to 89.5% after the first 6 episodes.

The majority of Backup Uganda’s team members bringing our solution to the communities we serve in Northern Uganda are members of these very communities. They were born and raised in the same region, attended schools similar to the ones we collaborate with, and now have children, nieces and nephews starting their educational journeys at the same schools. They have been adding their personal experiences to their professional capacity while designing, monitoring, evaluating and improving ODII and the Every Child Can Learn community podcast. Most speak the local language(s), which is particularly valuable for the quality of our translated podcast episodes and for building relationships with and receiving feedback from community members. While our Team Lead originates from the Eastern region of Uganda, he and his family have been based in the North for over 10 years now.

Our partner schools have been playing a crucial role in strengthening the quality of the ODII blended training package. The idea for this package came from frequent requests by remote primary schools and local education authorities to share our training content in areas that are reached less often by teacher capacity strengthening initiatives. We were committed to sharing our content as widely as possible and determined to design an approach that could fit this particular context. By now, we have piloted ODII at 4 primary schools and we are in the process of adding another 2 schools. All schools participating have been doing so based on their own expressed interest and motivation, our team does not pre-select schools. We have made improvements in the content and the delivery of this package - for example, which devices are best used for the video workshops - based on their feedback and will remain open to additional recommendations through the continuous feedback mechanism that is part and parcel of our partnership with each school.

The Every Child Can Learn community podcast is created by and for the communities Backup Uganda serves. It was born during the COVID-19 pandemic, out of a concern that children were expected to learn from home, guided by parents and caregivers who were largely unfamiliar with their children’s possible unique learning needs. Parents and caregivers we had connected with up to then advised us to look for an option that could make use of devices that nearly all have access to: mobile phones and radios. Since then, we have been creating monthly episodes with content shared by learners, parents and caregivers, teachers, specialists and other professionals. While our team takes care of the technical aspects and prepares guiding questions, the guests decide which experiences and information are most valuable to share with a wider audience. We have been following listeners’ guidance to make use of the most effective distribution strategies, sharing the episodes both online and offline, via phones, USB drives, on a speaker in main market areas and via the radio. Thanks to listeners’ feedback, we continue to receive ideas for new episodes based on their areas of interest.

At the moment, the ODII blended training package for primary school teachers and administrators has been fully developed, including 9 video workshops, accompanying workbooks, a training guide, a remote feedback mechanism and a monitoring, evaluation and learning structure. We are piloting it at 4 primary schools - 2 are near completion - while involving all teachers and administrators of each school, adding up to approximately 50 persons in total. This indirectly benefits about 1,600 learners. We have made initial improvements to elements of the package based on feedback from the teachers and administrators. Our team has completed a baseline survey with the teachers, administrators and learners, has been monitoring progress and will be holding an end line survey per school that completes the package.

We have produced and distributed 28 episodes of the Every Child Can Learn community podcast in English and Acoli, including their transcripts. Distribution has been taking place via Radio Maria in Gulu, our website, at major markets in Gulu via a speaker, and via individuals’ mobile phones and USB drives, for example at our partner schools and Gulu’s local education offices. While there is room for improvement in tracking the number of listeners, we estimate to have reached about 8,000* persons so far with one or more episodes

Our primary reason for applying to Solve is the opportunity that is offered to not only grow solutions in terms of scale, but in terms of quality as well. Our team would greatly benefit from technical guidance on specific aspects of our approach that go beyond our current capacity.

To maximize the impact of the ODII blended training package, we would like to design a strategy to address the challenges with self-motivation and self-organization that we experience with some participants and schools. Completing a training package remotely requires a level of independent planning and persistence; gaps in this can limit the benefits that the package is designed to bring. We feel the need to address this in a way that works for everyone involved before we consider sharing the package with more schools. Additionally, we would appreciate guidance on how to strengthen our current monitoring structure, so that it remains feasible and effective at a larger scale.

As mentioned earlier, we have recognized room for improvement when it comes to monitoring the distribution of the Every Child Can Learn community podcast. As episodes are often shared offline via a snowball approach, they reach listeners we are not always aware of. Support in designing an innovative tracking strategy would help us monitor our reach better and access additional listeners to include in our results measurements. In addition, we are actively looking for resources to make our episodes available in more local languages. Sunbird AI and Backup Uganda are working on a sample AI-based solution for this - it will require additional funds to expand it to multiple languages.

Both core elements of our solution would benefit from guidance on how to measure long-term impact on learners, as they are impacted indirectly. Lastly, both ODII and the community podcast would be able to reach significantly more teachers, administrators, parents and caregivers in Northern Uganda with access to financial resources for expansion.

Together, the key elements of the Every Child Can Learn approach have the potential to reach a much larger number of teachers, administrators, parents and caregivers within a shorter period of time than physical training and meetings could. While ODII and the community podcast have their own innovative elements, both offer the significant advantage of being able to access crucial information about learning difficulties and disabilities repeatedly at no additional cost.

The ODII blended training package allows us to include an increasing number of schools that often miss out on further professional development due to their location and lack of resources. The remote training approach is cost-efficient as well, as it prevents us from having to grow our team excessively while scaling up. Its semi-independent implementation offers convenience and flexibility: participating schools can integrate the activities that are part of the package in their schedules entirely according to their own preference without having to depend on our team. Teachers and administrators can complete the activities as a team or in smaller groups. 

The Every Child Can Learn community podcast gives parents and caregivers the chance to access information about learning difficulties and disabilities in any location of their preference, at any time of the day. Unlike for physical meetings and radio talk shows, listeners do not have to make themselves available at a specific location or time to ensure they do not miss out. As the episodes are available in multiple languages, online and offline and in audio and transcript format, it means that limited literacy, access to internet, knowledge of one specific language and limited hearing and auditory processing ability are no barriers for parents and caregivers to access the podcast content. Lastly, as members of the communities we serve are welcomed to share their own experiences and knowledge as podcast guests, as well as request for specific content to be covered, it offers a unique opportunity to share and benefit from local expertise.

This solution can catalyze the significant impact that other initiatives have made when it comes to increasing access to quality education for all children. As we see more children with disabilities and other special needs going to school through various interventions, our solution adds value by ensuring that this investment is worthwhile. Additionally, it will connect to teacher professional development and community awareness approaches that focus on inclusive education in general by filling the gap that has remained when it comes to learning difficulties and disabilities.

Ultimately, it will change the inclusive aspect of the education landscape in vital ways: teachers, administrators, parents and caregivers will know how to create an inclusive environment for all children with visible and hard-to-identify learning needs, which creates a foundation for additional solutions like assistive devices, improvements in school and home environments and more specialized training; relationships between teachers and parents, teachers and learners, and parents and their children will be strengthened; and having learning at school and at home complement each other more will become possible.

The two elements of the Every Child Can Learn approach tackle the knowledge gap among primary school teachers, administrators, parents and caregivers when it comes to learning difficulties and disabilities among children and how to support children’s learning in an inclusive manner.

ODII offers teachers and administrators workshops on identification and offering individualized support, follow-up lesson observations, learning & evaluation sessions, and the formation of an active Inclusive Education Committee (IEC). Progress in relation to these activities is measured through the following output indicators:

# of workshops on identification and offering individualized support to learners with learning difficulties & disabilities conducted (expected output: 9 per school)

# of follow-up lesson observations conducted (expected output: 45-60 per school, depending on the # of teachers)

# of learning & evaluation sessions with teachers and administrators to identify barriers to implementation and strategies to overcome these barriers conducted (expected output: 3 per school)

# of active Inclusive Education Committees (IECs) formed within all partner schools (expected output: 1 per school)

# of teachers and administrators trained (expected output: 15-20 per school)

The outcome that ODII aims for is strengthened in-service teachers and administrators’ capacity of early identification and individualized management of learning difficulties & disabilities among learners at 30 primary schools in Northern Uganda by 2027. We measure this by using the following outcome indicators:

% of teachers understanding identification & individualized management of learning difficulties & disabilities

% of teachers identifying learners with learning difficulties & disabilities

% of teachers applying individualized management to learners with learning difficulties & disabilities

Internal evaluation of our training at partner primary schools has shown an increase in learners feeling able to approach teachers, teachers understanding their learning needs, teachers identifying learners with learning difficulties & disabilities and offering effective (individualized) support. Third-party research on teacher education for inclusion supports that effective teacher training involves all teachers and stays away from cascade models (1).

The podcast element includes the monthly production and distribution of episodes via Backup Uganda’s website, partner schools, community meeting points and radio airtime, measured by:

# of podcast episodes on learning difficulties & disabilities distributed (expected output: 36 episodes)

# of parents and caregivers sensitized on identifying and supporting learners with learning difficulties & disabilities (expected output: 24,000 parents & caregivers)

The outcome we are working towards is enhanced understanding of learning difficulties and disabilities among parents and caregivers in Northern Uganda by 2027, measured as follows:

% of parents, caregivers and other community members identifying and communicating learning difficulties & disabilities in learners

% of parents, caregivers and community members supporting learners' inclusive learning

Internal evaluation of the distribution of our episodes at 2 markets in Gulu City have demonstrated a significant increase in listeners identifying learning difficulties & disabilities among people they know and offering support.

1.  I. Lewis et al. (2019). Time to stop polishing the brass on the Titanic: moving beyond ‘quick-and-dirty’ teacher education for inclusion, towards sustainable theories of change, International Journal of Inclusive Education, DOI: 10.1080/13603116.2019.1624847

Our solution has been developed to make a significant contribution to high-quality, inclusive education for all children in Uganda, through a sustainable, inclusive support system for primary school learners in Northern Uganda who experience learning difficulties and disabilities. To be able to measure our progress towards this impact goal, it is vital to learn from our indirect, but most important target population: the learners themselves. Via our activities, outputs and outcomes we gain insight in how their teachers, administrators and parents are progressing towards more inclusive school and home environments. However, we cannot confirm whether we are truly approximating the impact we intend to have unless we ask the learners to share their experiences with us.

To do this, we measure our progress towards the following impact indicators:

1. % of learners who feel they can approach their teachers and parents or caregivers when they find learning difficult
2. % of learners who feel their teachers and parents or caregivers understand what they need from them to learn well
3. % of learners who feel the way their teachers and parents or caregivers help them when they find learning difficult, is making them learn better

As mentioned earlier, our team would greatly benefit from Solve’s support in improving our strategies for impact measurement. We acknowledge the complexity of tracking our progress with a target population that is involved in our solution indirectly, especially since this target population is not uniform - learners with various learning difficulties and disabilities are quite unique and may have different experiences with the same solution. We are continuously debating whether tracking their academic performance over time will tell us more about the success of our solution. So far, we have decided against this, as eliminating the influence of other factors has not been within our capacity. However, we are open to guidance on this.

Our Every Child Can Learn approach uses a combination of primarily modern technologies that are accessible to our team and can easily be used by the people we intend to reach. 

The video sessions of the ODII blended training package are recorded using a video camera and wireless microphones, and edited with Adobe Premiere Pro. The package can be completed by teachers and administrators by utilizing any device that has a screen and speaker. This includes tablets, laptops, TV screens and smartphones, although we recommend using devices with screens large enough for a group of at least 3 participants to be seen at once. Partner schools that do not own any of these devices can borrow one from Backup Uganda for the duration of the partnership.

The Every Child Can Learn community podcast is recorded using a condenser microphone and edited with Audacity. While listeners can access the episodes online via our website and various podcast platforms, we strongly focus on making the episodes accessible to parents and caregivers via simple, available devices that can play audio files. These include mobile phones, speakers and radios that can play from a USB drive, and radios that receive the local radio station that allows us to play episodes twice a month. We welcome listeners to receive and share the episodes in any way that is available and convenient to them, including bluetooth, downloads and transfers via USB. On several occasions, we have learned that listeners share the episodes with neighbors and relatives by playing them on a loudspeaker and listening together. To make the episodes accessible to more parents and caregivers in Uganda, we are making progress with an AI solution in partnership with Sunbird AI, which will make it possible to translate each episode to multiple languages instantly instead of having to do this manually.

Our solution team currently has 5 full-time staff members: our Team Lead (i.e. Country Director), Lead Trainer, Finance Officer and two Trainers (i.e. Frostig Trainees). Our Fundraising & Partnerships Coordinator works part-time, and 2 freelance, voluntary consultants support our MEAL efforts and the editing of the ODII videos.

The Every Child Can Learn approach was triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. The first designs and recordings were made in 2020, which means we have been working on our solution for 4 years now. The first Every Child Can Learn podcast episodes were distributed in 2020. We started testing the ODII blended training package in 2022, once schools in Uganda had reopened after a nearly 2-year closure

Our team recently transitioned leadership of the Uganda team from its female, Dutch Co-Founder to a male, Ugandan long-time team member to ensure local leadership. The Lead Trainer position is held by a Ugandan woman and our Fundraising & Partnerships Coordinator is a Dutch woman. Our Uganda team consists of 4 women and 2 men in the age range of early 20s to late 30s. While team members originate from various parts of Uganda and include 1 foreign resident, half of our members were born and raised in our area of operation. 

The core of our daily work is to celebrate diversity and promote equity via inclusive practices in education. Internally, we are guided by our Diversity, Equity & Inclusion policy that we developed as a team early 2023, inspired by the Global Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Benchmarks. We treat it as a working document that needs continuous improvement based on new information and best practices, and we have integrated relevant aspects in other internal policies, like our Human Resource Policy, Code of Conduct and Nondiscrimination Statement. We organize regular training moments with our team and maintain a DEI resource bank that is accessible to everyone. We emphasize the use of inclusive language in every aspect of our work and daily lives, guided by resources like Oxfam’s Inclusive Language Guide (2023). 

Via our annual traineeship program, we promote equity among young graduates in Uganda. Every year, we recruit 2 Ugandan trainees who have graduated in an (inclusive) education-related course from a Ugandan university in the past year to give them the opportunity to learn while working and earning a salary. We actively encourage applicants with disabilities and select the trainees based on their motivation to learn and continue in the inclusive education sector, without considering previous work experience or their region of origin. The traineeship gives them a stronger chance to find meaningful employment in their sector of preference. Our general recruitment practices give space for affirmative action when warranted, for example by prioritizing Ugandan nationals. When selecting service providers, we start by sourcing locally, before we consider looking at other regions or countries.

While we have been making efforts to diversify our fundraising efforts, we are aiming to develop a stronger blend of local and international sources of funds to encourage local ownership of Backup Uganda’s work. We are also well-aware that our overall governance structure offers room for improvement. Currently, our Board of Directors is based in the Netherlands and consists solely of Dutch nationals, as the organization was founded there. In 2024-2025, we plan to convert our current international NGO status to a national NGO, which will give us the opportunity to install a Board of Directors within Uganda. We intend to give our current Advisory Board members in Uganda the chance to take up the key leadership positions in the new, national Board of Directors. On top of that, we will aim for this new Board to consist of at least 50% persons with disabilities.

The Every Child Can Learn approach consists of two core products: the ODII blended training package for primary school teachers and administrators, and the Every Child Can Learn community podcast for parents and caregivers. We share both via our partner primary schools, community meeting points and online routes in Northern Uganda, with permission from the Ministry of Education & Sports, their local education offices and other relevant local authorities, plus informed consent from the teachers, administrators, parents and caregivers.

We distribute ODII among our partner schools and monitor and evaluate its use continuously. In year 1, we meet the schools’ administrators and teachers to commence the partnership; establish a school-based Inclusive Education Committee together; encourage them to complete 3 sessions per school term; and follow up on their progress via phone calls, termly learning & evaluation meetings and IEC meetings. We continue monitoring and guiding their independent use of their new skills and knowledge during year 2. In the meantime, we share the Every Child Can Learn community podcast episodes with as many parents and caregivers connected to each school as possible, online and offline. Listeners access them on any device they own that can play audio files, download or stream them, hear them via a local radio station or at a public meeting place. Baseline and end line surveys help us demonstrate our impact indirectly by measuring the progress made by our product users, and directly by evaluating the experiences of our ultimate target group: the learners. 

Our users have a vested interest in ensuring that all children in Northern Uganda benefit from quality, inclusive education. Parents and caregivers want a bright, successful future for their children and make significant investments in their children’s education. Teachers and administrators take pride in their learners’ achievements, while their schools benefit from the good reputation that comes with this. Learning more about the learning difficulties and disabilities that their children may be experiencing allows them to demand for and offer better services at schools; support better from home; look for additional help; and eventually increase the schools’ population and therefore income.

Currently, we implement the Every Child Can Learn approach at no cost for the users, as their resources are often limited. We are exploring co-financing models with private schools and education-focused organizations, as well as corporate partners contributing financially to the production of the podcast in exchange for advertisement. Should this become successful, then we intend to reinvest all proceeds directly into the expansion of the Every Child Can Learn approach to additional regions in Uganda. Our current revenue sources include grants (41%), donations by private individuals (32%), in-kind contributions (15%), consultancy services (7%), fundraising events (4%) and sales of merchandise (1%).

To run our activities effectively, we require a strong technical team for production, distribution, monitoring and evaluation, plus the financial resources to remunerate them, cover the logistical costs, and purchase additional devices that ODII users can borrow. Scaling up will increase all these costs, except for the production team.

So far, Backup Uganda has been funding the initial stages of the Every Child Can Learn approach through a variety of mechanisms. Our sustained partnership with the Frostig Center in Pasadena, California, USA has made it possible for us to run our traineeship program for just over 4 years now, with a commitment to continue for an additional 2 years at minimum. The trainees actively support the implementation of the ODII blended training package at our partner schools and the production of the Every Child Can Learn podcast episodes. In addition, the Frostig Center has financed the purchase of the camera and wireless microphones we use to record the ODII videos. In total, they have invested funding worth $38,854 to date (including other elements of our work that are unrelated to this solution).

In addition to this partnership, we hold regular local fundraising events and sell our MOYA merchandise (including t-shirts, cups, notebooks and stickers) in multiple countries to sustain our work. On average, our events bring in approximately $400 per event and our MOYA sales totaled to about $230 in 2023. We are actively working to increase this by establishing stronger mobilization strategies for our events and adding more sales points for our MOYA merchandise.

We are fortunate to receive monthly donations from multiple individual donors, adding up to approximately $6,500 per year. To supplement our income, we also offer consultancy services to other organizations and companies in the form of professional development sessions on inclusion of persons with learning difficulties and disabilities. In 2023, this raised $1,400. The voluntary consultants who support our MEAL efforts and video editing contribute to our solution in kind, lowering the funds required. Lastly, we are in the process of expanding our podcast distribution through corporate partners like bus companies and supermarkets, which would add another in-kind contribution.

In the near future, we hope to grow the reach of ODII and reduce the resources needed by establishing a co-financing model for private schools and organizations that want to make use of the training package and can afford to contribute. In addition, we are building an advertisement structure for the podcast, giving corporate entities space to market their products and services in exchange for a financial contribution to the podcast production and distribution process.