This October half-term, Emily Walton, Bluesoup’s Head of Digital, joined Edukid on an unforgettable trip to Cambodia.

Bluesoup donates 10% of its profits to Edukid, and this journey was not only a way to support the trip but also an opportunity to witness first-hand how those contributions make a real difference.

“During my weeklong trip, I created some truly unforgettable experiences with the team from Edukid and all the young people I met along the way.

We met some of the rural communities supported by Edukid, which highlighted the profound difference educational funding can make.

One evening, I was honoured to meet a few of the university students who are funded by Bluesoup – we dined on frogs, beetles and crickets washed down with a green fanta! Rathana, in particular, blew me away – she works tirelessly in her community as an intern and teaching English, and then goes to university at the weekend, where she studies full-time. Her passion and commitment were so inspiring and it reinforced the value of Edukid’s work.

I am proud to be part of an organisation like Bluesoup who support Edukid in creating opportunities that empower and inspire communities and individuals. It was an experience that will stay with me for a lifetime.”

As part of his Bronze Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, 13-year-old Harry chose to volunteer with Edukid through our remote Global Citizenship Programme. Over three months, Harry engaged with the realities faced by many young people in Uganda, including the challenges of living without electricity. He discovered that for many students, a lack of lighting in the evenings meant they were unable to complete their homework which affected their education and future opportunities.

Motivated to make a difference, Harry learned about Edukid’s Solar4Students programme, which provides solar panels to families so that children can study in the evenings. Inspired by this simple yet powerful solution, Harry set out to raise both awareness and funds to support the programme.

Harry came up with a brilliant idea: a community “Power Walk.” He calculated that each step generates around 2–5 joules of energy, and he set himself the ambitious goal of walking 20,000 steps (approximately 17.8 km). Joined by his mum and brother, Harry achieved this goal, raising awareness throughout his town.

To further highlight the power of solar energy, Harry carried a solar-powered light bulb with him during the walk. He turned it on at 8 PM—and it shone brightly through the night until 7–8 AM, demonstrating the real-life impact of solar technology.

Thanks to Harry’s creativity and dedication, he raised an impressive £120—enough to fund solar panels for three families in Uganda. His initiative is a shining example of how young people can take action to make a real difference in the lives of others.

Sunday Margaret is one of many girls that Edukid has supported through primary and secondary education. Sunday achieved the qualifications needed in order to apply for university and will be pursuing her dreams of becoming a nurse through Edukid’s University Scholarship Programme.

Sunday currently lives with her mother and 4 siblings. Sadly, her father died during the Civil War that took place close to their home in Northern Uganda. Sunday’s Mother, now the only provider for her family, never had the opportunity to go to school meaning that she has struggled to find employment and as result has always had very little income. She generally farms her small plot of land, and they survive off of the produce. The family live in chronic poverty and would be unable to fully fund Sunday’s education without Edukid’s help.

Edukid are providing 70% of Sunday’s educational fees. The remaining 30% will be the responsibility of Sunday’s wider family and friends. This is in order that the entire community are empowered to support Sunday in her journey to becoming a nurse, working together to support each other.

Sunday Margaret worked incredibly hard throughout school and university and is now working in the local prison in Gulu and has been employed as a ‘Prison Nurse for Juveniles’.

Since her employment she has already helped so many young people!

Without education, this position she is in and the opportunities she is able to offer others within her community truly would not have been possible.

A young woman with a passion for gender equality and equipping the next generation with knowledge, Franka, a former student of Edukid, has achieved her dreams of becoming a qualified teacher.

In her early life, Franka’s mother passed away, leaving Franka’s father to look after her and her 14 siblings. Providing basic needs such as clothes, shelter and food for 16 people was a strain on Franka’s father. She describes her childhood as difficult, explaining that as a girl, a pressure fell on her
to work hard in order to supplement the family income, offering ‘odd jobs’ to neighbours such as digging land and fetching water.

Before Edukid’s support, she had little opportunity to attend school, often being chased out of the school gates after sneaking into a classroom and hiding at the back. Edukid began supporting Franka’s education so that she no longer had to sneak into lessons.

Now a qualified teacher herself, Franka is an advocate for education. She is concerned for the next generation of children coming through explaining that “these days, it is even more difficult than it was for me to get to school. School fees have increased so much and are unachievable for many families.” Franka also voiced her concern for young girls “Some families see girls’ education as pointless because when they reach 15 or 16, they will just become somebody’s wife. I am happy to always be campaigning for girls’ rights and education, for I am only where I am because of education”.

Franka has excelled so much, that Edukid have now offered her a job linking UK schools and teachers with their counterparts in Uganda, in order to promote a two-way learning platform. As part of her job role, she will be traveling to England to spend time with the team, visiting UK schools to teach students about Ugandan culture and history.

During her visit, Franka will be supporting the team in establishing a more regular channel of digital communication between the UK and Ugandan schools so that staff and children can learn directly from one another.

Alfred grew up in a conflict zone. His childhood saw the peak of rebel activity and war in Northern Uganda.

His early life was spent fleeing bullets and sleeping in the bushes, churches and hospitals in fear of abduction during the regular night raids by rebel soldiers.

Amidst living on the frontline of civil war, Alfred and his family struggled through life, trapped in chronic poverty. His father chose to spend the little family income on alcohol, neglecting Alfred’s need for education.

Alfred was one of the first children Edukid began supporting through school in 2008 when the project in Uganda was first established. He chose to continue on our programme after finishing secondary school and was supported through vocational training in
mechanical engineering.

Alfred now owns his own mechanic workshop and is kept very busy each day with a steady flow of business. Because of this, he can financially support his own children through education and is also able to give back to others in a life changing way. Each year, Alfred offers street children the opportunity to start a paid apprenticeship at his workshop. They work alongside him, learning invaluable skills and becoming fully trained and equipped to take on work independently.

As one of 18 children in his family, John’s childhood was spent trying to convince his father to pay for his school fees, a request that was consistently refused.

Determined to get to school, John began working hard from dusk until dawn in an attempt to raise funds for his own school fees. At a young age, John’s days consisted of early mornings, planting and hacking down sugar cane, to then wheel it into the nearby trading centre in the hope that he would earn a small
income.

The Edukid team heard about John’s situation and began to support his education. This meant, for the first time, John could solely focus on his studies, no longer needing to spend all of his time on the streets of his rural village selling sugar cane. By the time John had reached secondary school, he
had been offered a scholarship by Edukid, and had decided to specialise in sustainable agriculture. John explains “I learnt from Edukid, that, the hand that gives, has blessings. That same spirit is always in me, I need to support others”.

Now 26, John has started his own charity called Tic Ber (meaning ‘Good Works’). His focus is on food security, farming and improving access to basic needs in his local community, through training 150 households about sustainable agriculture.

John is an incredibly inspiring and humble individual, and his story serves as a reminder to us, that education can cause not only ripples, but tsunamis of transformation. John said himself “I am very grateful to Edukid for supporting me, and I encourage them to continue their work. There are other people coming. If you have changed a child, you have saved the world, because the 1 person you have changed, will go out there and change another.”

Nell came through our UK school’s Global Citizenship Programme as a former student from one of our partner schools. In late 2017 Nell joined Edukid on a trip over to Cambodia. Nell is currently in her final year of university and plans to spend time volunteering with Edukid next year. Here she recounts her experiences in Cambodia and how the trip has inspired her in the next chapter of her journey.

My name is Nell Salvoni and while studying for my A Levels I was given the incredible opportunity to join Edukid on their annual trip to Cambodia. One student who had been supported by a family from the UK on the trip was Bonnie, who told us her story. Until I heard Bonnie’s story, I don’t think I had fully comprehended the incredible, life-changing work that Edukid does. Bonnie had grown up in a slum, where she had to pick litter from a young age to help her family make money instead of going to school. She explained how hearing a story of a pregnant woman who had died because she could not afford healthcare made her decide that she wanted to be a doctor, despite not having had access to education at the time. Now she is a qualified doctor, with her education having been supported by Edukid.

I had an amazing time delivering school packs to classes of school children from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap, and despite the language barrier meeting them and entertaining them with arts and crafts and sports equipment was just as enjoyable for me as it was for them! It was truly inspiring to see the communities come together with Edukid to build schools and having met Bonnie you could see the immense value in the project to the children and their futures.

While overwhelmingly I saw the incredible potential of humanity to do good during this trip, I also visited sites that remind us of the horrific consequences of human’s potential to do evil. While staying in Phnom Penh we were taken to visit the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, a former school used by the Khmer Rouge regime as a prison camp during the Cambodian Genocide in the 1970s. It was partly this experience which encouraged me to study History at university, where I am currently in my final year. I believe that if we can document and remind people of what happened in the past it will hopefully help to prevent a repetition of such atrocities and build a better future. However, being attuned to what has happened, and what could happen, is not enough if action is not taken. That is why Edukid’s work is so important. Through education, communities have been rebuilt from the devastation that Cambodia experienced in its recent history. Hopefully, through giving young Cambodian’s the tools to learn, to build prosperous futures for themselves, and even to achieve their dreams, as Bonnie and many others
have, the future will be a lot brighter.

After university I am planning to return to Cambodia to volunteer with Edukid. I am really proud that I helped to encourage my school to make lasting links with the charity and enabled other students to go too. I regularly think about the amazing people I met in Cambodia and I could not think of a more important thing to do with the skills that I have gained at university than to go back and volunteer with the incredible young people that Edukid works with.