SUED Stichting Understanding, Education & Development
  • Gilgil, Nakuru
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OUR PROGRAMS

Role Model for Values

In many of the communities where SUED works, children grow up with limited access to positive role models. Poverty, family challenges, school dropouts, unemployment and exposure to negative social influences can leave children without adults who consistently demonstrate the values, behaviours and aspirations they need to see to shape their own futures. While communities have many people with potential to inspire, there are often too few visible and consistent role models who can guide children, encourage them to remain in school, uphold their rights and make positive choices. SUED responds to this challenge through capacity-building programmes that strengthen teachers, Boards of Management (BOMs), parents and children's governments to become positive role models within their schools and communities.

Children's Government as Role Models

SUED recognizes that children themselves are a powerful role model resource to other children. This approach is built on the understanding that children often listen to and identify strongly with their peers. A school president who demonstrates discipline, respect and responsibility can influence fellow students in ways that an adult sometimes cannot. Similarly, a class governor who encourages classmates to remain in school, respect one another or speak up about challenges becomes a visible example that other children can follow. This creates a peer-to-peer role-modelling effect.

Instead of leadership remaining confined to the elected child, positive behaviours begin to spread across the school. Children see their peers taking responsibility, solving problems peacefully, respecting others and participating in school activities, and are encouraged to emulate those behaviours. For SUED, this is an important investment in sustainable change, by mentoring and supporting the children leaders in inspiration sessions. We are not only helping children to understand their rights and responsibilities; we are giving them the confidence, problem-solving skills and platforms to demonstrate those values to others.

Your support turns one child's confidence into a culture of respect and responsibility that spreads across the whole school.

Board of Management (BOM) as Role Models

We recognize Board of Management (BOM) members as key influential community leaders and role models who help shape the learning environment and strengthen relationships among schools, families, and the wider community. Through targeted capacity-building, SUED equips BOM members with knowledge and practical skills on child protection, education leadership, environmental stewardship, community engagement, and sustainable development. This enables them to champion positive change within their schools and communities. As trusted leaders, BOM members become SUED Role Models and Champions, demonstrating good governance, promoting child-friendly learning environments, advocating for children's rights, and encouraging families and communities to support children's education and wellbeing. The approach also creates a sustainable multiplier effect. Rather than relying solely on direct programme interventions, SUED invests in local leaders who can influence others, share knowledge, mobilize community support, and sustain positive practices beyond the life of the project.

Your support helps to develop BOM members as role models. It strengthens local ownership, community accountability, and long-term sustainability. These champions serve as a bridge between schools and communities, helping to ensure that the gains made through SUED interventions are embedded within existing local structures and continue to benefit children and families over time.

Teachers as Role Models

Teachers interact with children every day and are among the most influential adults in their lives. SUED therefore invests in strengthening teachers not only as educators, but also as mentors, child-rights champions and examples of positive behaviour. We capacity build and mentor teachers in school leadership and value based education, beginning with Heads of Institutions and Head Teachers, and extending to teachers, to strengthen their knowledge, leadership and practical skills in areas that directly affect children's wellbeing, rights, education and protection.

Through this process, teachers who demonstrate commitment, leadership and the ability to influence positive change become SUED Champions within their schools. These champions serve as trusted points of reference for colleagues and learners. They model positive behaviour, moral values, and advocate for children's rights and help integrate SUED's principles into the everyday life of the school.

This creates a sustainable model in which SUED's impact is not dependent solely on external consultants. Instead, the Champions within the school are motivated and responsible in carrying out the work by themselves as part of the normal school routine. The champions who have developed a positive mindset and confidence are further equipped to share their skills with fellow teachers. They become internal trainers who can facilitate peer-learning sessions, mentor colleagues and support the adoption of good practices within their school.

This peer-to-peer model is particularly powerful because teachers learn from professionals who understand their own classroom realities, challenges and opportunities. To strengthen our self-sustaining resource development, SUED builds capacity from within the education system. We scout potential champions who take the lead as trainers of trainees (ToTs) who are further inducted in our enhanced trainers program across our project schools. Ultimately, SUED's investment is not simply in capacity building for teachers. It is in building a sustainable network of education professionals who can model positive leadership, transfer Values and champion children's rights within their schools.

With your support, SUED equips teachers to become champions who carry positive leadership, knowledge and children's rights forward within their own schools, long after our programme staff have moved on.