How it all started
It all started when…
In 2005, Charlie Laliberte and his daughter, Nicole, visited a friend teaching in Kampala, Uganda. They used Kristin's home as a base and traveled around the country, enjoying the local flora and fauna and the warmth of the people. During their stay, Kristin spoke with them about the insurgency in northern Uganda that had troubled the Acholi people for nearly 20 years. The Lord’s Resistance Army operated in the rural regions, kidnapping young boys to serve as soldiers and girls to be used as sex slaves. Kristin explained that the area was so dangerous at night that rural children would walk to the town of Gulu to sleep on the sidewalks, where they found safety in numbers. Within Kristin's school, she had collected items for the children in the north, and Charlie and Nicole helped deliver these donations to Gulu. They met with a local group to learn about the challenges the community faced, including the difficulties parents encountered in affording school fees and supplies.
The challenges faced by these children left a lasting impression on the Laliberte family. They later spoke with fellow teachers Joseph and Dorothy Valintis, and together they founded ChildrenUP. Incorporated in Illinois in 2007, ChildrenUP was established to support education in northern Uganda. By 2008, it obtained charitable status as a 501(c)(3) organization. Charlie and Betty Laliberte, along with Dorothy and Joseph Valintis, supported the first two beneficiaries—strong students who had been accepted to Makerere University in Kampala. They were recommended by UYAP, a local Gulu organization. One of the young women excelled in her studies, while the young man did not succeed.
Charlie and Betty recruited fellow high school educators and former students to form the board for ChildrenUP. The board determined that the greatest impact they could make would be in supporting secondary students. Charlie returned to Gulu and met with Ambrose Okot, the head of the Education Department at Gulu University. Professor Okot informed Charlie that students from rural communities had significantly fewer opportunities for secondary education. He suggested that ChildrenUP use the National Seventh Grade Leaving Exam to identify academically strong students in these areas. Another concern raised by Professor Okot was the high dropout rate for girls in primary school. He hoped that if one girl from a school received a scholarship for secondary education, other girls in that school would be motivated to complete primary school. Understanding the cultural preference for educating boys, and Professor Okot’s concerns regarding the need for support for girls, ChildrenUP developed a policy ensuring that each new group of Senior 1 students admitted to the program would consist of an equal number of young men and young women.
In 2010, a part-time staff of two local teachers from Gulu and an accountant agreed to work on this educational project. Boarding schools that had consistently high marks in the national Uganda Certificate of Education exam were selected. The program emphasized two layers of mentoring: in-school mentors and staff mentors, which became a cornerstone of the Gulu Education Program. That year, the first group of eight ChildrenUP students began their secondary education.