Forty-something Margaret Abeku, a teacher at Kanu Primary School, claps and laughs out loud in a mix of joy and disbelief. The children at her school are playing the first mixed game of football she has ever witnessed. The game is an initiative following a gender sensitization training she and her colleagues have just finished, thanks to UNICEF’s Learning for Peace programme.

Kanu Primary is in the heartland of Karamoja, Uganda’s impoverished and conflict-affected northern region. Margaret grew up here, and violence – often exacerbated by gender imbalances – was as omnipresent then as it is now. Also unchanged is the attitude towards, and treatment of, girls at school: “When I was young, my parents had a negative attitude towards my education, especially my mother. She would tell me, ‘I have educated my sons, I don’t want my girl-child to go to school, because if she goes to school, she will become a prostitute.

Despite enormous odds, Margaret’s determination got her through school and teacher’s college, a teaching job in her locale and has seen her push her own three daughters through school and into the first stages of college. It has been an uphill battle her entire life because, in reality, very little has changed.

Still thinking of her own experience as a student, Margaret says: “The teachers didn’t treat the boys and girls equally. I remember one time my teacher he was really very harsh to a girl child. He was abusing her because she came late. And he used, really, a wrong language on this girl. And up to now I’ve not forgotten this language.”

But today, small steps have certainly been taken in this region following the Learning for Peace-supported trainings: “I learnt that girls can do what boys can do, even maths!” Margaret adds that she and the other teachers are mixing the boys and girls seating in the classroom, they are calling on both sexes equally to give answers and are giving both equal duties and opportunities to shine, such as being class monitors.

And today, those squeals of joy are not only coming from Margaret, but from the players in mixed teams chasing the ball with equal determination in the hard red dust and from their audience: the rest of the students in the school.

Story by Nicola Simmonds

Schools play a significant role in legitimizing potentially harmful gender stereotypes at an early age which can pose a challenge to education access and quality, can undermine boys’ and girls’ ability to contribute to peacebuilding and can even fuel violence. Teachers therefore serve a critical role in encouraging alternate beliefs and behaviors amongst children and their parents. Thus, as part of the Learning for Peace programme, UNICEF and the Ugandan Ministry of Education, Science, Technology and Sports trained teachers to redress gender equality in the classroom and promote the equal participation of girls and boys. Download the Gender, Education and Peacebuilding Brief for more about gender relations in education and peacebuilding.