Welcome to our overseas projects page!

The Central Council of The Victoria League selects an overseas educational project to financially sponsor every two years (within our resources). These projects are then administered by partner organisations, who must be registered charities in the UK.

In 2021, we received a very generous legacy donation from the late Robert Wainwright who had been a lifelong member of the Victoria League.  This is a restricted fund donation, one of its purposes is to ‘support overseas project on an educational theme’.

Some of this legacy – the Robert Wainwright Fund - was used to fund overseas projects in 2022 and 2023. 

We thank both the late Robert Wainwright and his executors for their generosity.

Please have a look below to see our current (and some of our past) educational endeavours abroad! Donations to The Victoria League can be made here. These donations go into a general donation fund, from which we allocate funds as needed for our overseas projects. Any donations received in excess of our overseas project pledge for any given year will be kept for charitable purposes at the discretion of our Central Council.

2023 Project

A Partner In Education

2023 has seen our fifth partnership with A Partner in Education (APIE) with a donation of £5,000 from the Robert Wainwright Fund that will help fund three Umubano Academy (UA) teacher salaries in 2023/2024, enabling teachers to continue supporting children in need and sharing their practice across Rwanda via APIE’s outreach programmes.

UA teachers have undergone rigorous training and are experts in learner-centred education, learning through play, ICT, and much more. They are fundamental to the provision of quality education. As a not-for-profit school, UA is not supported by the government, relying on contributions from parents and fundraising efforts by APIE. Out of 320 learners at UA, approximately 20% are part of APIE’s scholarship programme, including free places for children of staff. Staff salaries remain the school’s highest expense as APIE is committed to paying a living wage.

         

©A Partner in Education

Previous years' projects

2022 Project

A Partner In Education

We are delighted once again to support A Partner in Education (APIE) with a donation that will enable five girls in Rwanda to attend the Umbano Academy (UA) for a second year of secondary education from September 2022, giving them more hopeful prospects for the future.

Typically, if a girl leaves education after primary school she would be unlikely to find work other than at home. The APIE Rwanda team have already started designing gender-responsive training for the teachers at Umbano Academy, which is greatly needed to ensure that the girls - and indeed all the girls at UA - get the start that they deserve in life, with the same aspirations on offer to them as their males counterparts. 

©A Partner in Education

Please visit www.apartnerineducation.org for more information.

Lonely Orphans

This year we will also be partnering with Lonely Orphans supporting school children aged 4-10 in Bangladesh with a donation towards school equipment and running costs.

Lonely Orphans have been working to address the educational needs in various rural districts in Bangladesh; namely around Cox’s Bazar and Sylhet. The aim of our schooling projects is to setup and maintain simple schools that provide access to free education in rural areas. These schools provide children with learning from a wholesome educational curriculum, learning resources, school uniforms and nutritional snacks. On average, to set up such schools, it initially costs approximately £18,000-£22,000 and thereafter, it costs approximately £411 per child, per annum. This particular school in Masterpara, Bangladesh, has 70 children on roll. The annual running cost of the school is £28,743.78.

Please visit www.lonelyorphans.org for more information. 

2020 Project

In 2020 many charities have been affected by the Coronavirus pandemic, including the Victoria League but, despite this, we continue to support and send funds to the Umubano Academy. During the lockdown in Rwanda the teachers supported students with three lessons per day using remote learning via WhatsApp. Our supplementary funding will be used to purchase additional resources and interactive materials for students once they are able to go back into the classroom. The Horsham branch (UK) provided much of this funding. 

©A Partner in Education

2019 Project

©A Partner in Education

This year we have again partnered with, A Partner in Education (APIE).  APIE is a small UK-registered charity operating in Rwanda.  The core of its project is Umubano Academy (UA) in Kigali, which has already been ranked in the top three schools in the city despite only being opened in 2013.  The word umubano is Kinyarwanda for co-operation, and UA embodies this spirit of working together on a local, national and international scale.  Their work at the school focuses not only on educational excellence but also on well-being in a post-conflict community. This plays a significant role in what success looks like.

Rather than sending in foreign experts, APIE facilitates the professional development of Rwandan teachers to support the Rwandan Government's Vision 2020 objectives and the UN Sustainable Development Goal 4.  These aims hope to transform the country into a middle-income, knowledge-based society against the social backdrop of moving forward from the 1994 Genocide.

The Victoria League supported the equipping of a science lab at this school in 2018 – see below for details.

This year, we are helping to fund a Community Literacy Engagement programme.  Our donations will go specifically to purchase the books required for this project.     

©A Partner in Education

APIE: Science Laboratory in Rwanda (2018)

APIE asked The Victoria League to provide funding for a fixed secondary-level science laboratory at Umubano School. Having such a facility is required for school accreditation, and it should greatly enhance educational opportunities to further career goals and promote gender balance amongst work forces in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) occupations.

After meeting with representatives from APIE, The Victoria League pledged £4,000 to fully equip the science laboratory at Umubano.

To view APIE's Annual Report and Accounts for 2017, please see here. To view APIE's report for The Victoria League on 2018's project, please see here.

©A Partner in Education

Red Project Borneo (2017 & 2018)

Rural Education Development (RED) Project Borneo is an initiative under the Imperial College Union (Charity Number: 1151241) that aims to promote sustainable development amongst impoverished, marginalised, and rural communities in the Malaysian state of Sabah, on the three-country island of Borneo.

The primary means for accomplishing this objective is to construct education centres that provide village pre-school and kindergarten teachers with the infrastructure required to operate their schools.

After completing a feasibility study in 2015 alongside partnering with a local charity to help foster project sustainability, RED sent fourteen students in 2016 to construct an education centre over a six-week period in the summer. The project was a great success, and The Victoria League contributed £3,500 to build a second educational facility in Kampung Palipikan, Borneo, (2017). This centre was equipped with solar panels for generating electricity, as well as a rainwater-harvesting system for not only the pupils, but other villagers as well. Pictures and a full project report can be found at the link below. 

Our Trustees agreed to provide another £1,000 to RED in 2018 for a facility in Tudangan, Borneo.

For additional information, please see www.redprojectborneo.com or contact us.

©RED Project Borneo