RCE Greater Eastern Uganda-2014

a) Criteria/ indicators used to assess aspects of RCE work/ project: Character count 300 words: 
This report forms part of the annual reporting mechanism for Regional Center of Expertise (RCEs) for submission to the RCE service center. Greater Eastern Uganda Regional Centre of Expertise (GEURCE) is reaching two years after it was officially acknowledgement by United National University (UNU) in December 2012. This was a great achievement to Uganda and to the stakeholders of GEURCE. GEURCE is the second Regional Centre of Expertise (RCE) in Uganda after Greater Mbarara Regional Centre of expertise in Uganda. GEURCE is coordinated and hosted at Busitema University. The mission of GEURCE is to be a center of excellence in advancing public knowledge, skills, change community attitude and improve management capacity through networks, partnerships, collaborations and collective decision-making beyond the constraints of bureaucratic organisations, and across geographic, knowledge and sectoral boundaries to promote sustainable development. General objectives of GEURCE are to: (i) Increase public knowledge and skills on sustainable development (ESD), targeting leaders in local government, business, religion, cultural, academic institutions, among others, (ii) Promote activities and policies supporting achievement of sustainable education, MDGs, Uganda’s National Development Programme (NDP) in the region, (iii) Strengthen the capacity of the region to address keys challenges such as climate change impacts, urban waste management, HIV/AIDS, land degradation, poor academic performance, among others. (iv) Document and scale up best practices for land management, sustainable agriculture, health and small-scale business to the local community. The indicators used for self evaluation of GEURCE are (i) Number of students continues with education up to secondary level. This is expected to be reflecting in reports. (ii) Number of curricula reviewed and developed with skill based courses and ESD streamlined within the two year period. (iii) The number of teacher trained or retrained on the use new innovative approach for teaching and lecturing students with emphasis on the skills and knowledge for sustainable living and development (iv) Number f community sensitization meetings and training to empower then to make decisions based on knowledge of nutrition and practical home gardening (v) Number of research projects developed and implemented whether short or Long-term. Te number of research teams formed to continue with collaborations (vi) Number of person trained with relevant skills to improve their productivity and opportunity to get jobs and strengthen jobs. Number of person trained with relevant skills to improve their productivity and opportunity to get jobs and strengthen jobs. (vii) The number of community career based meeting and practicals conducted. (viii) the under of trees planted by the community and (vi)
b) Successes of the RCE and lessons learned: Character count 300 words: 
As a launch pad for the activities he Greater Eastern Uganda Regional Center of Expertise (GEURCE) organised official opening of the Regional Center of expertise (RCE). To date three workshops were organised during which the key stakeholders participated and it was an opportunity to sensitize them of the challenges faced by the community and need for their contribution in developing concerted manner to address the challenges. Secondly, seven student based community outreach activities were undertaken which had a profound impact within the community. Key activities undertaken under the student based community outreach included tree planting within the campus where over 3000 tree seedlings were planted within the university campus, trading/urban center and neigbouring schools. Two community based sanitation outreach activities/practices such as cleaning of dirty areas around the streets, markets, and rubbish pits at the trading urban centers as an exemplary show case for student community action were undertaken. Five school based activities included visiting schools where the students of Busitema shared their experiences, guided and counseled secondary school students and even taught in classes. Two trips were organised for the student and staff to participation in retreat at wildlife recreation centers at Tororo Rock and Kapkwai forest exploration center of Mountain Elgon National Park. This was an opportunity to energize the members and provide opportunity for them to interact and appreciate the natural habitat and wildlife of the country. The members participate in contributing one national debate on “Uganda @ 50 debate” as a platform for citizens to make contributions towards the “Uganda we want in the future”. lastly one research team was formed that undertook work on the endemic Aloe tororoana species in Tororo district. two publication of the research result has been published in the local science based newsletters and two national daily news papers.
c) Challenges experiences: Character count 300 words: 
The change experiences gained
1. Mobilizing the local community and undertaking the community outreach in the areas of career guidance, sensitization on the ESD has generally been very successful. The key lesson learnt is the fact that the communities have developed trust and appreciation of the support being provided and skills and knowledge given to the community.
2. Streamlining ESD in the curriculum was very interesting and it was especially exciting to understand how ESD can be made to occupy specific place in our curricula either as subject-specific objectives or as cross-curricular final objectives.
3. University student community is very keen and interested in participating in community outreach activities. They form a very big resource for such activities and can be very reliable set for outreach activities.
4. That the university has the opportunity to utilize the student community as a strategy to undertake ESD activities within the community.
5. The community outside are very keen to learn from the university as lead institution in the provision of knowledge and skills. They are also very cooperatives and this could be taken advantage of by the institutions of higher learning as a strategy to influence and change to have positive impacts on the communities for sustainable development initiatives.
6. The participants were very keen to see and monitor the trees planted on how they ewer growing tall very e and are now very healthy.The research conducted on the Aloe tororoana has made the local government aware of the resources and its conservation constraints which facilitated development of planning its conservation.