Bujuuko Foundation supports secondary students’ projects to improve their own schools through a model known as asset-based community development. Asset-based community development is different than the traditional model of development or charity. Traditionally, organizations asked their partners, “What do you need?” Using asset-based community development, organizations instead ask their partners, “What do you have?”
This question helps to focus attention on the many skills, abilities, talents, and gifts that are already abundant in the community seeking to develop. Members of the community identify their own priorities and abilities, and develop a plan for increasing and enhancing those assets. Development partners support the community’s goals through targeted funding, specialized skills training, or other specific gifts that allow the community to achieve its own vision for its future.
Bujuuko Foundation focuses on high school students because they have already begun to develop many of their skills and talents to make a difference. Right now, today, those skills and talents can be an asset to their schools and communities. High school students are the experts on the potential of their own schools. They can innovate ways to improve their schools, develop a budget and a business plan, organize their classmates to work together, and put the plan into action. With targeted funding for their projects and key training to develop their skills, they can make a difference in their schools and make the improvements that matter most to them. In the process, they gain business skills, self-confidence, self-respect, and a better educational environment to help them succeed in high school and beyond.
As university professors and researchers, the founders of Bujuuko Foundation welcome the opportunity to help our student partners grow into successful and confident young adults. We also welcome the opportunity to offer university students the opportunity to work alongside the Bujuuko students and to broaden their understanding of the world in cultures very different from their own.