In a Lakewood High School math classroom on a late fall afternoon, a handful of teenagers are plotting how they will raise $15,000 to build a preschool in rural Uganda.
Between mouthfuls of popcorn and the occasional joke, students discuss that will help bring in money to fund construction of a preschool building at the Global Leaders Primary School in Uganda’s Amolatar District. Currently, preschool students attend class in a shelter outside.
The goal might seem ambitious, but it’s entirely achievable, because this after-school club has done it before — in 2015, students raised $15,000 to pay for the primary school’s roof. The primary opened in 2016 and now enrolls 500 students.
This is Far Away Friends, a nonprofit organization that works to end generational poverty in rural Uganda through education and community development.
Far Away Friends was founded in 2014 by Lakewood High School graduate Jayme Ward and Collines Angwech, who met when Angwech was touring the United States in 2011 with the nonprofit group Invisible Children.
Angwech was a night commuter at her Ugandan boarding school, which meant she often left school at night to hide from the Lord’s Resistance Army, a terrorist group that has abducted tens of thousands of children to use as sex slaves and soldiers.
As a 17-year-old, learning about Angwech’s story “busted my worldview open in the best possible way,” Ward said.
“I thought, whatever you are doing, I will follow you the world over,” Ward said. “She told me, ‘I want to go home and improve the education for my people.’ She lived in a small district where 75% of kids were not passing seventh grade, and her dream was to change that. I said, ‘I’m going with you.’”
It took a few years to get there — Ward’s parents wanted her to attend a year of college before she visited Uganda — but by 2014, Ward and Angwech took the leap and launched Far Away Friends.
Nearly 10 years later, Far Away Friends now reaches 2,500 Ugandan students. One of its cornerstone programs is Schools for Schools, which partners Ugandan and U.S. schools to teach leadership and community development.
Clubs in Colorado, California, Texas and Florida are paired with five schools in Uganda.
“Each of those clubs get to recreate that story of me and Collines and develop those friendships with people who are different than them,” Ward said. “What we’ve found in these clubs is a way to scale the impact we’re making.”
Many of the benefits of Schools for Schools are tangible, like Lakewood’s fundraisers for new school buildings, but students also talk about an impact beyond a dollar amount.
Lakewood High School senior Racine Rieke joined Far Away Friends as a freshman and said she’s learned about Ugandan culture, global citizenship, what it means to be a leader, white saviorism and how she can step up and make a difference.
One of her favorite projects is the Skills for Life program, a Ugandan curriculum that works on reducing student absences and increasing engagement through classes on boundary-setting, mental health, entrepreneurship, peer pressure and more.
“Sometimes you feel like as a young person, like, ‘What do I contribute to the world? What can I do at such a young age?’” Rieke said. “Being able to meet people from halfway across the world and directly use my position that I was randomly born into to help others just like me, who were born in a different circumstance, but deserve the exact same rights and privileges — it’s just crazy to imagine being able to do this at such a young age. And I think that’s been my favorite part.”
Far Away Friends emphasizes connecting students and teaching them how to make a difference in an ethical way, Ward said. That means putting the voices of Ugandan community leaders at the center of any project, which is why Rieke and her fellow club members are planning a week-long school fundraiser known as Roar Week to raise money for a new preschool at Global Leaders Primary School.
“We were seeing a huge rate of parents who were really interested in preschool and getting their kids into education as early as possible,” Ward said. “We had an outdoor shelter they were learning in, and when the Lakewood kids saw that they were like no, no, no, this is our sister school and we want to do something about that.”
Roar Week is an annual fundraiser organized by Lakewood student leaders to benefit nonprofit and charitable organizations. At basketball games, spirit days and other events, students raise as much money as they can for community groups.
This will be the second time Far Away Friends benefits from Roar Week, which began in 2014 when school leaders wanted to maintain student energy that was poured into winning a contest that brought pop singer Katy Perry to perform at the school.
Teacher Carol Degenhart sponsors the Schools for Schools club at Lakewood and is integral to keeping it running, Ward said.
Degenhart, who was also Ward’s teacher, said it’s been fun seeing her former student influence the next generation.
“It keeps getting passed down as a passion and willingness to be involved and understand what happens in other places and how it’s different from what we’re lucky enough to be gifted with,” Degenhart said. “I wish everyone in our school could understand what a privilege it is to go to school and have what we have.”
Ward said she hopes Far Away Friends will continue to grow and add more clubs to the Schools for Schools network.
“It’s always been the dream that more kids can have their worldview cracked open the way mine was,” Ward said. “It gives me hope that tomorrow is going to be better, that there are kids who care about the world and care about friends, no matter how far away they are.”
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