It’s the most wonderful time of the year, and while Santa is in his workshop making presents, we’re over in Uganda helping children realize the gifts they never knew they had.

Through our 25-day Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) reading camps, almost 500 students in Central Uganda just had the opportunity to improve their foundational literacy skills.

One of these students is 9-year-old Sharoni from the Building Tomorrow Primary School of Kiryamusunku. While Sharoni once struggled to read and comprehend a simple story, she now soars through books and is on fire with an excitement her father has never seen before.

Sharoni stands with her proud father, Isiima.

“Whenever she would come home, she would get out the alphabet letters and try to write her name on the ground,” he recalls, smiling. “She would even come home singing the songs! We are very happy for what we saw our kids being able to do!”

Echoing these sentiments, Welkhe Aaron, the head teacher at the school, goes a step further to explain that the camp has not only excited the children about learning, but also reignited support amongst parents for their kids’ education in a big way. “I had a mother come all the way down to the school at one point to thank all of the staff,” he remembers amusedly. While she was about to pull her daughter out of school, upon seeing the way she was able to catch up, he says, the mother did not just ask but demanded that the school keep teaching her.

And teach the children we shall! Building Tomorrow is planning to expand this literacy program to an estimated 40,000 students at 400 schools next year, alongside a numeracy program to ensure that the benefits of education are adding up for the youngest amongst us.

It takes just $15 to provide transformative literacy and numeracy support to a student through Building Tomorrow’s Teaching at the Right Level program. How many students will you give the The Best Gift Ever to this holiday season?