Where is Buliisa?
POPULATION
171,000 (estimated 2023)
INDIGENOUS TRIBE
Bagungu (also Alur, Luo, and Lugbara)
LIVELIHOOD
Subsistence farming and fishing.
POVERTY LEVEL
Est. 55% below the poverty line.
LIFE EXPECTANCY
Average life expectancy in Uganda is 65 years (2024)
The main causes of death are malaria, HIV-AIDS and tuberculosis.
AGES
58 % of the population below 18 years of age.
15% of the population is below 5 years of age.
EDUCATION
2015 statistics from Buliisa District Local Government
- 12% of under 18 year olds have lost a parent. 1% of these are double orphans (both parents dead).
- Primary pupil-teacher ratio is 1:72
- Primary pupil-classroom ratio is 113:1
- Adult literacy is 52 percent. (National rate 68%)
- Level of education reached by all the population: 48% complete primary, 9 % complete secondary, and 1% tertiary
- Primary enrolment drops almost 80% between P1 and P7
- Secondary schools are also very understaffed
- 4x as many male teachers as female
Teaching in the Lugungu Language
Amari's core vision is to provide quality Christian education to orphaned and vulnerable children. We also believe that children are given the best educational start if they can learn to read and write in their mother tongue. (E.g. See Save the Children and UNESCO reports)
Given our rural location, our children's lack of exposure to print, and lack of exposure to written and spoken English, and because of our relatively monolingual setting, we have chosen to teach initially in Lugungu (the mother tongue of the Bugungu of Buliisa), and transition to other languages (English and Kiswahili) when the children are older.
To this end, and in consulation with SIL (Summer Institute of Linguistics), our teachers have been working on developing Lugungu language material suitable for Nursery level (learning to read), and adapting higher level material already published by SIL and LUBITLA (Lugungu Bible Translation and Literacy Association).
Dictionary from SIL
Resources from LUBITLA
