Te-Kworo Foundation was founded in 2002 to provide rehabilitation and education to war-affected women and children in northern Uganda.
Te-Kworo Foundation Founder and Executive Director, Alice Achan, was just thirteen years old when rebels from The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) first terrorised her village in northern Uganda, destroying her idyllic village childhood.
The civil war that followed saw the abduction and enslavement of 20,000 children in northern Uganda, with Alice forced out of school for years at a time, often running and hiding to escape rebel abduction.
These years gave her a thirst to continue her education. After escaping northern Uganda and completing secondary school in her twenties, followed by training in social work, Alice chose to return home to help rehabilitate girls returning from captivity. She understood from her own experience the many challenges girls in her war-ravaged community faced to stay in school.
Initially she gathered a group of local Christian women under a Kworo tree, to help house and nurture teenage survivors of abduction. In 2002, as more and more girls returned from LRA captivity, some stigmatized and rejected by their own families, Alice established CCF, which became Te-Kworo Foundation. Alice soon realized that access to education was vital if the girls in her care were to reclaim their lives. In 2008, she founded Pader Girls Academy, now Kworo High School, the first school in Uganda to offer secondary education to child-mothers, supporting these girls and their babies with childcare facilities and a flexible education program.
Today, Te-Kworo Foundation operates three boarding schools in northern Uganda. More than 4,000 girls have benefitted from academic studies and vocational training since the schools were founded, and numbers are still growing.
Te-Kworo Foundation also operates a Medical and Maternal Health Clinic which serves a population of approximately 300,000 people. We strive to give every woman and child the chance of a healthy life by supporting access to life-saving maternal health services and the opportunity for a safe birth for every pregnant woman.
Te-Kworo means under the kworo tree in the Acholi Lwo language.
It was under the shade of a Kworo tree in 2002 that Alice first gathered young girls with babies returning from rebel captivity. With its stately branches spreading wide to provide protection, this cultural meeting place became a symbol of hope and restoration.
‘Beyond inspiring… this story of the redeeming power of educating girls and the restoration of traumatised lives is beautiful. The impact will be immeasurable.’
Tim Costello AO
Written in Alice’s powerful yet understated voice, The School of Restoration is a compelling story of hope, forgiveness, redemption, and the human capacity to survive and even thrive against the backdrop of war and chaos.
