The Center for Peace and Development has been coordinating the Northern Uganda Collaborative Learning Partnership since 2016. The program operates in Gulu, Uganda. Students and faculty at the University of Oklahoma partner with local grassroots organizations to learn from each other in unique and meaningful ways.
The way it works is that local partners suggest projects that are important to them. Each course (we refer them as “tracks”) adopts a syllabus that has general shared objectives related to cultural learning and humility, general objectives related to the collaborative project done with the local partner, and objectives related to the coursework in each discipline.
The following is an example syllabus for a track from the summer of 2016. The local partner is St. Monica’s School of Basic Learning for Women.
In addition to the time spent int Gulu, Uganda, all students take the course Africa in Context, which is aimed at providing an understanding of colonialism and contemporary social and cultural context of Uganda. A key component of this is the focus on critical reflection on media portrayals of sub-Saharan Africa and on students’ own social positions as they interact with local partners.
Year | Courses Offered | Collaborative Projects |
2024 (Summer) |
| Grassroots Women's Peace Conferance |
2023 (Summer) |
| Culturally responsive literacy tutoring project. |
2022 (Summer) |
| Culturally responsive literacy tutoring project. |
2019 (Summer) |
| Grassroots Women’s Peace Conference and the Baseline Survey. |
2019 (Winter) |
| Baseline Survey. |
2018 (Summer) |
| Grassroots Women’s Peace Conference. |
2017 (Summer) |
| Culturally responsive literacy tutoring project with the School of Basic Learning at St. Monica’s. |
2017 (Winter) |
| Women’s Advocacy Photovoice Project. |
2016 (Summer) |
| Community-Based Research of Local Water Systems in Northern Uganda. St. Monica Campus Site Water Plan. |