By donating to our sponsorship programme
School fees in Uganda vary enormously, depending on the type and phase of school. The cheapest schools are the government primary and secondary schools which often have very large classes and very poor facilities. These schools also struggle to reward teachers sufficiently or to provide food and housing for them, and so teacher morale can be low.
Parents prefer to send their children to private boarding schools if they can find the fees. These schools cannot be equated with the private schools in the UK as many have very basic facilities and also often large classes. But in boarding schools, three meals are provided each day and there is supervised study every evening. Parents, therefore, do not need to worry about feeding their children or having light at home for them to study after school. Some parents also fear that their children are not safe walking to and from school, especially girls, so this is another reason for preferring boarding.
We sponsor children in all types of school from basic government schools to various private schools and the more prestigious “traditional” government schools set up in the colonial era. A full sponsorship costs £70 per year for fees and lunch for a day pupil at a basic government primary school and £120 for a day pupil at a basic government secondary school. The fees for a boarder at a good private primary school cost £300 and up to £800 for a boarder in a private school or a traditional government secondary school with a good reputation for academic standards and progression to university.
We welcome any donations towards our work. We have donors who fully sponsor individual pupils and others who partly sponsor individual pupils by making a contribution towards their fees. We have other donors who do not want to sponsor an individual pupil but who support our sponsorship programme with one-off or regular donations. This money helps us to supplement the part sponsorships, buy essential scholastic materials (e.g. pens, exercise books, geometry sets) and support children’s welfare, with food in the holidays, clothing, soap, and medical costs.
Donations can be made on this website and are processed by the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF), the government agency which administers gift aid.
All the money we receive from donors goes to the children and young people we sponsor in Uganda. Trustees, teachers and students joining the annual visit to Kabale are volunteers who pay for themselves. We do not employ anybody. We use some of the gift aid we get for donations from UK taxpayers to make small payments for the services our partners in Uganda provide on our behalf (e.g. paying school fees, being available as a point of contact for parents and headteachers in case of problems or illness, copying and sending school reports to us) and for bank and audit fees. The remaining gift aid money is used to support our sponsorships.
By contributing to our work in schools in Kabale
We welcome any teachers, teaching assistants, teachers in training or retired teachers to join us on our annual visit to Kabale. We have good contacts with schools and colleges in all phases from nursery to secondary to higher education. Since 2007, we have worked with teachers to support them in developing teaching resources and more active methods than “chalk and talk”. In recent years we have helped to establish a community of practice across a group of schools with the aim of supporting teachers preparing for curriculum reform in Uganda. This is a small project funded by The Richard Feilden Foundation, a UK charity set up by a firm of architects who have done very interesting work on school buildings in Africa.
The project focuses on active teaching and learning, school environments and behaviour management. Whilst in Kabale, we engage in a variety of activities such as observing lessons, helping with lesson planning, or running training sessions. We are sensitive to the Ugandan context of poor funding of education, lack of resources and undervaluing of teachers. However, we meet great enthusiasm and are often lost in admiration of teachers’ resilience and students’ passion for learning. This work is very rewarding and joyful as well as excellent professional development for UK teachers.
We would also welcome other professionals who work with children and young people, for example, social workers, careers advisers, IT specialists. There is huge scope to make an impact in all these fields.
If you are interested in finding out more about this, please email Liz Walton, Chair of Trustees, on lizwalton22@gmail.com