Arts Ignite Part of Groundbreaking Research Study

Arts Ignite Teaching Artist Thembile leads Professional Development workshops for educators in Uganda

Arts Ignite is excited to share the groundbreaking research findings from our work with the Ubumwe: Integrating Arts for Education and Psychosocial Support with Children and Youth Affected by Displacement in Uganda project.

In collaboration with Columbia University Teachers College, Mailman School of Public Health, AfriChild Research Centre, HAF Uganda, and Artolution, Arts Ignite has successfully developed and implemented a Professional Development series and arts curriculum for over 60 local educators serving refugee children living in Uganda’s Kyangwali Refugee Settlement.

Thembile with members of the Ubumwe project team

The spark for this collaboration came in 2022, when a teacher based in the Settlement contacted Arts Ignite through our website seeking arts-based programming for their students.

Soon after, we connected the teacher with Arts Ignite Board Member and former co-director of CPC Learning Network Mark Canavera, who previously worked and lived in Uganda. From there, the project grew to include colleagues at Columbia’s School of Public Health, along with longtime Arts Ignite Teaching Artist Thembile, who serves as the Associate Artistic Director of our artsINSIDEOUT program.

The first Ubumwe pilot ran in Uganda in 2023, with Thembile and our US-based Teaching Artist Quynn as lead facilitators. Over the course of the two week professional development and training, the program’s potential to deliver immense benefits for the Settlement’s young people was apparent. Since then, we have worked both stateside and in-country with our partners to create an original arts integrated curriculum unique to the region’s needs, and have returned to Uganda for three in-person residencies to share and train the settlement’s educators on how to implement it in the classroom.

A teacher leads a hand clapping activity developed as part of Ubumwe 2023

Outside of the in-person workshops, Arts Ignite provides ongoing professional development for local educators, ensuring long-term sustainability and integration.

Our local teacher partners are now piloting the 6-month arts curriculum with students during the school semester. Though implementation is still in its early stages, feedback from educators already shows promising results.

Most notably, teachers observed more active student engagement and enthusiasm for learning after implementing the arts into their instruction. One teacher commented that “everyone would like to participate [in arts class]….compared with those normal classes. However, these [arts] activities where we are playing, everyone was eager [to] participate.”

Another saw attendance improve as a result of the arts classes: “Children would come to school daily—even those who do not come to school every day. Since we brought [the arts curriculum], children were no longer absent.”

Thembile teaches a movement workshop earlier this year

Other benefits of the arts curriculum included improved relationships between teachers and students, and increased student belief in their creative potential. Reflecting on lessons centered on designing Kitenge, a traditional cloth worn around the region, one teacher shared the following:

“We…see people putting on Kitenges…[but] we are unable to make them [ourselves]. But you find us, even a child in P5, P6 (equivalent to US 5th and 6th grades, respectively), is able to make Kitenge. So new ideas were developed. They (the students) [realized] they can also get more ideas from themselves and make those things.”

Regarding a shift in dynamics between teachers and students, an educator noted that “the children started loving [the classes]. It improved the teacher-pupil relationship…the children now were [keen] to engage with teachers.”

This work—and the research behind it—has now been formally recognized on the global stage. For the first time in Arts Ignite’s history, our work has been published in an academic journal. The findings from the Ubumwe project were recently featured in International Development Policy, the peer-reviewed journal of the Geneva Graduate Institute, in an article titled “Participatory Approaches to Education in Crisis Contexts: A Case Study from the Kyangwali Refugee Settlement in Uganda.” This marks a major milestone for Arts Ignite, underscoring the impact of our work and the global relevance of arts education in crisis-affected settings.