On 2–3 September 2026, 18 participants from 15 targeted households came together at St. Joseph Primary School in Mateete for practical training in book-making. The training was facilitated by Yimuka Uganda, with support from Mateete Catholic Parish, which provided the venue.

The two-day training marked more than the acquisition of a new skill. It was the first practical step in testing its Enterprise-to-Education (E2E) Model – an innovative approach to how COSMA supports vulnerable households to build incomes while sustaining their children's education.

The Enterprise-to-Education (E2E) Model is designed to link household economic opportunities with children's education, using enterprise, income and savings to help families progressively take greater responsibility for sustaining their children's education.

LEARNING FROM EXPERIENCE

For more than 15 years, COSMA has supported vulnerable children to access and remain in school. That experience has demonstrated the value of education support, but has also raised a difficult question: what happens when external support is no longer available, especially when a child's education journey can span more than 15 years?

COSMA's experience with vocational training raised a similar challenge. Women and young people had previously been trained in skills such as book-making, shoe-making and other hands-on skills, but many did not continue practicing those skills after training.

In many cases, the challenge was not the skill itself, but what came next – access to capital and raw materials, opportunities for productive work, and markets for finished products.

These experiences led COSMA to ask a different question: Can we connect education support with a practical pathway for households to build income, save and progressively take greater responsibility for their children's education?

This question is at the heart of the Enterprise-to-Education Model.

FROM SKILLS TO ENTERPRISE

E2E is designed to connect skills, productive work, enterprise, income and savings with children's education.

The book-making initiative is COSMA's first practical test of this approach. Following the training, COSMA has established a book-making social enterprise through which participants can apply their skills in real production while earning income.

This is a deliberate shift from training alone. COSMA is taking responsibility for key enterprise requirements—including capital, raw materials, management, marketing and distribution—while participants focus on productive work, building experience and earning income.

The aim is to create a pathway in which a skill does not end with training, but becomes part of a functioning enterprise and a source of household income.

LINKING ENTERPRISE TO EDUCATION

E2E looks beyond immediate income. As the enterprise grows, its profits are intended initially to help protect the education of children from participating households, providing a safety net while caregivers build and stabilize their own incomes. Over time, as household earnings grow, caregivers are expected to take progressively greater responsibility for meeting their children's education costs.

The longer-term ambition is a gradual transition from external support, to enterprise-supported education, and ultimately to households sustaining their children's education from their own income.

A JOURNEY COSMA IS STILL LEARNING

COSMA is not presenting E2E as a finished solution. The book-making enterprise marks the beginning of a Learning Phase in which COSMA will test what works, learn what needs to change, and understand what it takes to build a viable and sustainable model.

For COSMA, this means moving beyond an idea and learning through practice together with the households taking part. At the centre of that journey is one question: Can strengthening household economic capacity help families sustain their children's education?

The book-making enterprise is COSMA's first practical test of that question. It is therefore more than a production activity. It is the first step in testing whether enterprise can become a pathway through which households progressively take greater responsibility for sustaining their children's education.

The journey from child sponsorship to education self-reliance for vulnerable households has begun.