enjuba is an education social enterprise Improving literacy and executive function for Ugandan children through spelling bees, publishing locally relevant children's books and early childhood programs

The Spelling Bees create a spark and brings excitement to children, teachers and parents alike, enabling them to develop the curiosity to read, unlock their imagination, and aspire to be the best they can ever be. It starts at school and goes all the way to the African Spelling Bee.

enjuba Publishes locally-relevant beautifully-illustrated children’s books that enable children see themselves in the characters they read, fall in love with reading, and LEARN to READ so they can READ to LEARN. We have delivered over 300,000 books to children, either directly or through last mile community and school libraries.

enjuba’s ECD program focuses on providing access to the 60% of Ugandan children who are not enrolled in pre-school and enable them to develop executive function skills. We operate a lab pre-school as a model for offering quality education, training of teachers, and a research center on early childhood development practices. This is a springboard for supporting the creation of early childhood development centers in rural public schools.

We believe that education is the equalizer and a very power- ful weapon to enable children reach their full potential. Unfortunately, 83% of Ugandan children under age 10 cannot read and comprehend. This is partly why 6 of every 10 children are not completing primary school with the highest dropout rate of 30% occurring in grade one. enjuba exists to create interventions to deal with the heart of the problem.

enjuba was started in 2006 with a mission to empower all people to reach their full potential and to have access to opportunities and choice. Through the years, our desire has always been to invest ourselves in sectors where we can make the greatest impact. We started out working with artisans to make clothing and accessories and enabled them to create and run their businesses. In 2012 we moved into micro-finance, first to support our team of artisans and then the general public, while at the same time started our education initiatives because there was such a great need to innovatively invest in education. In 2016, we decided to cease our micro-finance operations and grow our education initiatives.

Our decision to focus on education was based on the fact that Uganda is the youngest country in the world with 5 out of every 10 people being children below the age of 15. Unfortunately, 71% of them were not finishing primary school in time partly because they could not read and comprehend and going to school was not fun at all. Our innovative 360 degree low-cost approach has enabled us to impact well over 2.1 million children across Uganda.