“We had no hope of coming back to school…” | Update from Uganda
One of our Primary 7 students sits alone at a bench desk wearing a mask as part of our new requirements.
Last month, Uganda’s Ministry of Education announced that Primary 7 (P.7) students could return back to school to resume their classwork in preparation for a springtime Primary Leaving Exam (the major exam which decides whether or not a student will continue on to secondary school). Thanks to the dedication of our community of monthly Advocates, we were able to send enough funds to Uganda in October for our team to purchase temperature guns, build two tippy-tap hand-washing stations and coordinate the safe return of our Primary 7 class. For students like Ongom Abel, this was a very exciting moment after being out of school for more than eight months.
“We had no hope of coming back to school,” he shared in a brief video message recorded outside of Global Leaders’ P7 classroom, “but through the Distance Learning program our Teachers took to us the good advice of having more hope for the future.”
Under our limited reopening as of October 15th, Global Leaders (GLP) has brought back 35 of our P.7 students, five of which are brand new pupils who transferred to GLP from other schools after hearing about the impacts of our Distance Learning program (woo hoo!). Although our few Primary 7 students are enjoying being back to school with their Teachers and peers, all of our students from lower grades will still remain at home until at least February 2021, and possibly even longer, unless we are able to raise $20,000 this December to meet the necessary safety guidelines to fully reopen our school.
GLP Teacher Mr. Veve visits the home of one of his students while Mom cooks dinner and listens in.
While we are so grateful for our ability to continue reaching students through our Distance Learning program, bringing all of our kids back to school is Priority #1, as students continue to face an incredible amount of challenges while at home. For children living in rural villages, schoolwork unfortunately takes a back seat while they struggle to help support their family who now have had an extra mouth to feed since GLP temporarily closed back in March. “During home visits, teachers have told me stories of their pupils getting tired of staying at home and one big cause is too much work. They were praying the government reopens schools for all classes — not just Primary 7,” Country Director, Collines Angwech wrote in this month’s GLP report.
Students like Etojo Ramazan, a third grader at GLP, reported spending his entire day herding cattle for his parents, giving him no time to complete the worksheets that his Teacher dropped off during a home visit or to practice his reading skills. Other Teachers have reported students as young as second grade are going out to Lake Kyoga with the fisherman to earn extra money for their parents to purchase food.
The harrowing reality of school closures for girls
While many boys are faced with instances of excessive child labor at home which keep them from focusing on school, the reality of continued school closure is much more serious (and dangerous) for our girls.
According to UNESCO, “When schools shut down, early marriages increase, more children are recruited into militias, sexual exploitation of girls and young women rises, teenage pregnancies become more common, and child labour grows.”
One of our incredible GLP Teachers, Madame Judish conducts home visits to check on the wellbeing of our girl students and provide tutoring as part of our Distance Learning program.
During her last trip to the village, Collines met a woman from Etam Town Council (about 20 miles away from Namasale where we work) who shared a harrowing story about a young girl she knew in her village who started working as a dance performer for political campaigns after her school closed down to earn extra money. During this time, she became pregnant but could not identify who the father was because she was abused so severely by so many different men. “This poor girl is now suffering with her pregnancy with no help,” the woman shared.
“If her school [and Teachers] would have cared to check in on her wellbeing during lockdown the way that your school [Global Leaders] did, this never would have happened to her.”
This story, told to Collines by a stranger from a town 20 miles away, demonstrates the incredible impact of our Distance Learning program in inspiring rural communities across Amolatar District to more deeply consider the value of private education, of schools, and (most importantly) of Teachers, in supporting and protecting the needs of the whole child.
GLP Primary 7 students do their best to maintain social distancing requirements during class. Only 35 of our 250 students are back to school.
P7 girls maintain their distance in the lunch line at Global Leaders. Notice how beautifully the compound is swept by our GLP team!
Hope for reopening is on the horizon…all we need is YOU.
While our Teachers continue to travel across Amolatar District each week to visit and tutor their students thanks to the support of our Advocates, they are eager to bring all of their students back to school safely — which will not only have a positive affect on our kids, but on the entire community as well, as school closures have caused severe disruptions in the lives of the most vulnerable and marginalized children and their families.
GLP is a shining light in Amolatar District, representing what’s possible and opening new doors for children in rural Uganda, as 100% of our students have matriculated on to high school (versus the 14% average country-wide). In order to reopen our school in February, we have a lot of sanitation, hygiene and social distancing safety improvements to make to ensure that every one of our students can return to school healthy & safe.
On December 1st (#GivingTuesday), we’re launching our most ambitious fundraising effort ever to raise the $20,000 needed to reopen Global Leaders safely in just 24 hours. This campaign will cover everything we need for a safe, full reopening — from funding brand new desks for students (check out the efforts of our outstanding high school clubs in making this possible!), hiring a school nurse for a year, renovating all of our student toilets for improved sanitation and bat-proofing all of our buildings on campus for the health of our children & staff.
A generous donor has offered to give a $5,000 matching gift on the condition that we can raise the first $5,000 of our $20k goal by 12pm MTN on December 1st. To make this possible, we need YOU.
Sign up here to make an impact as a Virtual Volunteer and join us in launching a Facebook Fundraiser in support of our campaign on #GivingTuesday. You can also save the date or set a reminder to make a gift that feels meaningful to you and help us reach our $20,000 goal to reopen Global Leaders safely for our 250 students!
As always, we hope these stories remind you of the incredible impact that we are making, together, everyday in the lives of children, of Teachers and entire communities in rural Uganda. Thank you for your support!
