Thematic Area 1
Education is the foundation upon which refugees rebuild their lives and create sustainable futures. Kyangwali Refugee Settlement is home to 152,394+ refugees and over 300,000 host community members. Government schools are dangerously overcrowded, with 100 to 200 children crammed into classrooms designed for 40 to 50. Most schools lack basic resources like textbooks, desks, and blackboards. Families used to survive on World Food Programme support of just $4 USD per person monthly, which was barely enough for food, let alone school fees, uniforms, and materials. This was also stopped due to the US Funding cuts in 2025.
At P4T Schools, 95% of our learners come from refugee families, many of whom are from rural areas in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan, Rwanda, and Burundi. Both refugees and the host population face widespread poverty, mental health struggles, inadequate healthcare, and persistent food insecurity. For many families, sending children to school is simply a formality rather than a belief in education's potential.
What makes us different: we are community-owned and refugee-led. Our teachers, administrators, and staff are refugees who lived these same struggles and design solutions that actually work.
P4T employs a holistic approach beyond academics. We offer:
Our education delivers academic excellence, fosters children's overall well-being, nurtures their talents, and equips them with social and entrepreneurial skills to become transformational leaders.
Ages 3–8 Years
P4T operates two ECD campuses serving refugee and host community children using a Play-Based Learning approach to early childhood development since 2015. In our Education Model Flywheel, ECD level is at the Imagination Phase, where children create solutions to social problems and entrepreneurial needs through play.
Our ECD program focuses on cognitive, emotional, social, and spiritual development through play-based learning. Children engage in outdoor play activities that develop motor, social, and confidence skills. Every child receives two nutritious hot meals daily: porridge for breakfast and a packed lunch, because proper nutrition during these formative years literally builds brain architecture.
Each year, we hold graduation ceremonies that celebrate our youngest learners and prepare them emotionally and academically for the transition to primary school, affirming that their children's futures matter and that education is possible even in displacement.
Ages 6–17 Years · Licensed by Uganda Ministry of Education
P4T Primary School educates 428 learners from Primary 1 through Primary 7 and is fully recognised by Uganda's Ministry of Education and Sport. We maintain manageable class sizes that allow teachers to actually teach and students to actually learn.
What We Provide
Academic Excellence: We strive annually to complete syllabuses early, provide adequate assessments, and promote peer learning among learners to influence the best performance for the P7 candidates that we register for the Primary Leaving Examinations by the Uganda National Examinations Board.
Teacher Development: Our staff engage in continuous professional development through expert-facilitated training on assessments, sports coaching, Project-Based Learning, Play-Based Learning, and classroom delivery, equipping them with updated skills to support learners holistically.
Senior 1–4
In 2023, P4T established a Secondary School in a hall previously used for martial arts (kung-fu) training. The school soon grew from 46 students in Senior 1 & 2, to more than 200 students in 2025. “With no classrooms to call our own, we turned a simple martial arts hall into a place of learning, proving that education is not defined by walls but by vision and determination. This journey stands as a testament to resilience, faith, and the unstoppable power of a community committed to shaping its future.”
Infrastructure & Partners
With the generous support from The Altenburg Foundation (AF) and the School for Life Foundation (SFLF), we were able to quickly construct classrooms, science and computer laboratories, a Library, staff quarters, a kitchen, and an administration block, which completely transformed the campus in just 2 years. The Belron Ronnie Lubner Charitable Foundation (BRLCF) later enabled us to fence more than 8 acres of land surrounding the Secondary School and the Vocational Skills Training Centre.
School for Life OPEX grant allowed us to hire and retain qualified and experienced teachers, CIYOTA and YC4C provided leadership and entrepreneurship trainings, and the untied grant from Partners for Equity (PFE) helped us to finance the holistic features of our Education Model across Senior 1-4, and prepare for the Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE) Examinations.
Academic Support & Project-Based Learning
500,000+ Meals Served Annually
P4T has provided hot meals every school day for six years, breakfast and lunch for every child enrolled from ECD through secondary school. When children know they'll be fed at school, enrolment increases, attendance improves, dropouts plummet, concentration sharpens, and academic performance rises.
Technology & Innovation in Education
Our school's computer lab is equipped with curriculum-aligned content approved by Uganda's National Curriculum Development Centre. Students build essential digital skills, such as typing, operating a computer, navigating software, conducting online research, and confidently interacting with digital tools, preparing them for success in the modern world.
These computers represent more than education; they offer refugee children the possibility of competing for scholarships, applying for jobs beyond manual labour, and imagining futures that seemed impossible before.
We address every barrier simultaneously: hunger through feeding, poverty through scholarships, distance through boarding, trauma through trained counsellors, and resource gaps through comprehensive provision of materials. We are licensed by Uganda's Ministry of Education, follow national curriculum standards, and prepare students for the same examinations as any other Ugandan school.