Due to AIDS epidemics, civil wars and extreme poverty, there are over 2.6 million children who have been orphaned in Uganda. Sam Tushabe, once an orphan himself, founded AOET (AIDS Orphan Education Trust) in response to the suffering he witnessed in his own community. Since its founding in 1995, AOET seeks to empower communities to be able to care and provide for the many children who live there and who have been orphaned or made vulnerable as a result of the HIV/AIDS crisis.

AOET has also established two schools in Jinja, Uganda- Rehaboth Integrated Primary School and Rehaboth Integrated High School- and a medical clinic that provides basic health care, health education, and immunizations for children in the programs. Assist International has partnered with AOET in 2006, initially starting out by building many of the orphan homes there. Since the partnership began, Assist International has helped build classroom buildings, dormitories, a library, a chemistry and biology laboratory, a computer room, additional homes at the AOET Children’s Village, and a clean water well for the village. In addition, there is a smaller AOET Rwanda and AOET Kenya; Assist International has also helped raise child sponsorships for children in the AOET programs.