June 16, 2025
Today, history demands that we pause. On June 16, 1976, thousands of students in Soweto, South Africa, marched against an inferior education system designed to keep them subservient. They were met with bullets.
Forty-nine years later, the tear gas has cleared, but the central truth of their protest remains desperately relevant here in Wakiso: The quality of a child’s education determines the ceiling of their life.
At Fecane Child Foundation, we mark this day not just with remembrance, but with a renewed, militant commitment to our mission. After five years on the ground, we have stopped viewing education as merely a “program” we run. We view it as the only viable exit strategy out of the crushing cycle of poverty.
The Trap of Perpetual Emergency
Just last month, we were wading through waist-deep mud after heavy rains destroyed homes in our community. We provided blankets, food, and temporary shelter. That is necessary work; it is life-saving work.
But it is not freedom.
Providing emergency relief keeps people alive today, but it guarantees they will need emergency relief again tomorrow. If we only focus on survival—on food, on soap, on temporary shelter—we are merely managing poverty, not ending it. We are keeping children alive just long enough for them to inherit their parents’ struggles.
We are tired of managing poverty. We are here to dismantle it.
The Master Key
The children of Wakiso are trapped in a complex prison built by economic exclusion, poor healthcare, and unstable housing. This prison has many locks.
“You can try to pick the locks of poverty one by one with aid programs. But high-quality education is the master key that kicks the whole door down.”
When we educate a girl in Wakiso, we don’t just teach her to read. We give her the economic power to delay marriage, the knowledge to keep her future children healthy, and the income to build a house that won’t collapse in the rain.
Education is the difference between a child who needs aid in 2040 and an adult who is leading their community in 2040.
Redefining “Education” for 2025
The students of 1976 fought against an education designed for servitude. In 2025, we must fight for an education designed for the modern economy.
Basic literacy is no longer enough. The “exit strategy” for a child in Wakiso today requires digital fluency, critical thinking, and adaptability.
This is why our current rented halls are bursting at the seams. It is why our “Vision 2030” plan for a permanent Learning Center includes a state-of-the-art digital lab. We refuse to offer second-class education to first-class minds just because of where they were born.
The students of Soweto were brave enough to demand better. We must be brave enough to build it for them.
We cannot keep patching up a broken system with emergency aid. We need to build the permanent infrastructure of freedom.
Our proposed Fecane Community Learning Center is the engine room for this exit strategy. On this Day of the African Child, stop funding temporary relief and start funding permanent liberation. Invest in the Vision 2030 Capital Campaign
