Projects
Past Projects & Voices
“What RUN is doing has brought more long-term positive impact than large-scale projects like UNICEF and Save the Children in our community.” – Bugiri District CDO 3
Every program we develop centers around a specific aspect of a the community's weakness and leverages the community's strengths to address it, whether it be nutrition, clean water and energy, hygiene, or education.
Over the years, we witnessed solar-powered lights bringing young boys and girls together for an extra hour of reading after sunset. We also listened to the sighs of relief as families were cured of water-borne illnesses after we introduced affordable water filters. We even saw how parents from distant towns would attend our talks and revaluated their stance on corporal punishment in favor of alternative teaching and engagement methods.
Whether in evaluating past projects or entertaining new ones, we start by listening to the the needs of the community and how they are being addressed. These are often as varied as they are challenging. Nevertheless, through malaria and COVID-19, we find a way to effect the desired impact.
Selected Past Programs
Dental Hygiene with Benco Family Foundation
Part of Benco Family Foundation’s mission is to improve dental health and quality of life around the world. RCG partnered with Benco to provide every child with a toothbrush and toothpaste to last a year. Thanks to our combined efforts, we raised awareness of preventative measures in dental hygiene within the community of Nankoma Village.
Christmas in Uganda
On December 25th, 2017, four of our Korean staff members celebrated Christmas with our staff and children in Nankoma. Along with dances, show and tell, painting exercises, readings, and debate, we played and studied with the children.
RCG staff members were also invited to a social event hosted by a Member of Parliament, had numerous meetings with district and community-level officials, and met with local business owners to discuss ways of building trust, cooperating, and making a real difference in the community.
Clean Water & Self-sufficiency with SPOUTS
We partnered with SPOUTS, a student-founded enterprise that won the Harvard President’s Innovation Challenge in 2011, to provide affordable clean water options in the neighborhood. By targeting a population that has the need, purchasing power, and mutual trust with our staff, we are making clean water accessible by raising awareness of its importance, sales, and payment plans, while generating a small profit that will take us closer to self-sufficiency in Uganda.
Cascade
Cascade is a methodology founded by a small team of undergraduate students at Harvard College interested in service, education, health equity, and social entrepreneurship. Working under the greater umbrella of RUN/RCG as an organization, Cascade seeks to provide residents of rural Uganda with a strong educational foundation to help reduce disparities in accessing basic rights such as proper healthcare and sanitation, traditional education, and reliable shelter.
RCG Community Center
The RCG Community Center is the largest initiative RCG has undertaken. In an effort to serve the many needs of the community—from classes to a public library, recreation center, and housing—we have dedicated our attention to constructing a multi-unit campus that can sustainably grow and develop as a central hub that will empower the community we work for generations to come.
Since December 2021, we have mobilized our staff, local architects, and masons to start designing and building parts of the RCG Community Center. Today, the Angela Mathew Center stands as the first building constructed in this series to host education programs.
KitKit School (Tablet-driven Education)
In November 2021, we established a partnership with Enuma, then a startup focused on providing early English literacy and math skills. Enuma offers Kitkit school tablets which are electronic tablets preloaded with English and math courses for a wide age range. Along with our mass purchase of tablets, Enuma employees from Tanzania provided training for our regional partners. Today, these tablets provide a source of alternative education for local children who cannot attend school.
Scholarship
According to the OECD report on education, this means that to the private individual, most of the population does not have access to higher wages and superior employment prospects in skilled labor.
In a broader, social context, this means the population as a whole suffers from inadequate access to healthcare, reduced participation in volunteer activities, an erosion of interpersonal trust, and a negative impact in political efficacy, even controlling for literacy, gender, age, and monthly earnings.
This program seeks to enroll a group of students to some of the finest boarding schools in the country and provide them with the means
necessary to excel academically in order to maximize their chances at enrolling in tertiary education.
Tuition and school-related expenses make up most of the capital resources needed to implement Project Moonshot, as it can cost upwards of $1,300 annually to send a single student to a reputable school that meets our screening criteria (e.g., quality of faculty, classroom size, average graduation exam score).
Additionally, our holistic approach includes regular check-ins with beneficiary students, counseling with family and/or designated guardians, as well as intensive summer programs that are designed to improve the scholastic performance of our scholars.