Rationale

Rationale seeks to improve access to education for youth by building community-driven scholarship programs and supporting collaborative research projects.

Rationale is an education and collaborative research grassroots organization that partners with communities in northern Uganda. We encourage young Acholi men and women to rethink the ways in which knowledge is produced in northern Uganda by challenging traditional representations of war-affected youth. Northern Uganda has been marked by civil conflict for more than two decades, leaving only intermittent educational opportunities for two generations of youth. We see Rationale as a partnership between transnational communities uniting to provide an invaluable public good: education.

Our scholarship programs are built by providing direct scholarships for secondary and university students while simultaneously investing in community-run projects. These projects provide training and experiential learning for students while also generating income to provide additional scholarships. Our collaborative research projects encourage youth to 'own' their own representations and those of their communities, to become active producers of knowledge, and to take part in larger, global conversations that directly affect their livelihoods. Rationale takes a holistic approach to education by directly supporting students in the classroom while also establishing a foundation from which the community’s future leaders can gain valuable skills.