Tag Archives: skills centre

The benefits of sponsorship – it’s paying off

Primary Leaving Exam success – it’s great to report that all but one of our sponsored children who succeeded in this exam are now being supported in secondary school.

UCE – the equivalent of our GCSE. Three sponsored candidates sat at this level and all of them succeeded at with good results. They are now studying at the next stage.

UACE – A levels. Let us celebrate the success of Hellen Nabakiibi who comes from a very poor family and who had very little hope of a worthwhile future. She has achieved a brilliant result at UACE. She gained the 2nd best result in the entire school.

We are now looking forward to her being able to move on to the next stage of her story as she seeks to sort out a university placement.

#sponsorship

Needy people in the village and the skills centre

We have already reported back on the inauguration of the skills centre and the work under way there: sewing and the making of reusable sanitary pads.

Now two more projects are under way – hairdressing and soap making.

#projectsskillscentre

#skillscentre

Let’s never forget that the main purpose of these projects is to support poor schoolgirls and needy women in the community and once again we are delighted to thank Let Yourself Trust for their generous grant that has enabled our friends in Uganda to get these things moving.

#ProgressSkillsCentre

Child Sponsorship

You all know by now that our child sponsorship programme is at the heart of what we have been doing for so many years, and we are never short of children in need of support. Here are just two of them.

It costs little more than £1.50 a week to give a child a full year of education. Just ask if you would like more information.

Nsubuga Elementio comes from a very poor family. He was sponsored until last year but his sponsor has had to drop out, so we are looking for someone to pick up the baton to help him through school.

Nakiranda Daisy was abandoned by her struggling parents in the city. She is now staying with her very poor grandmother.

#childsponsorship

Leaving the best till last

Sansa

We’d like to tell you the story of a very special little girl. For her 9th birthday, Sansa said that, instead of receiving a present for herself, she wanted to help Ugandan children in need.

Because of her, we were able to help feed the girls in the Little Angels Children’s home and to buy more books for our Reading for Pleasure project.

Brilliant, yes?

But it got even better when she then decided that she wanted to sponsor a little girl’s education. It may only be a small amount for you and me, but for a nine-rear-old it is much more than that.

Thank you so much young lady. It is people like you that inspire us to keep going in our work.

#readingforpleasure

Keith Mills

FFoU

Note: We only send this blog to people who are interested in our work. If you no longer wish to receive it, please tell us and we shall immediately remove you from our mailing list.

Progress at the Skills Centre

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The First Major Project

The community church at Bulumbu is situated alongside the Little Angels Primary School. Both the school and the church are important co-members of the extended village community that we want to help.

To get the sewing project under way (it was during the school holidays), it was agreed to help members of the church to learn sewing machine skills and to produce uniforms for their choir. Eight members of this group are very needy single mothers with children at the school.

Of course these women had never benefited from schooling and a positive side effect of this work is that now their children see their mothers involved in the project, and they are encouraged to see it also as an opportunity rather than just a job for people who lacked formal education.

The Children’s Turn

The new school term is now under way and this group of pupils has already been given an introductory lesson in the operation of the sewing machines. Practical work will follow.

#skillscentre

The Sanitary Towel Programme

The 2^nd tranche of the generous grant the we received from the LYT (Let Yourself Trust) has now been transferred to our colleagues,

The sanitary towel project was introduced before the Covid lockdown and this grant will allow it to restart and grow, supporting girls at both secondary and primary school levels as well as for disadvantaged young women in the village community.

At the time of writing, the materials have been ordered but not yet received. The course will start as soon as they arrive and suitable times have been arranged with the trainer.

The New Term Under Way

#supportingschools

The Hatters Half Marathon

The event – in early September – took place on a lovely Sunday morning; pleasant for both runners and those of us acting as marshals.

Our grateful thanks go out to Andy Titley for carrying the FFoU banner in this event. His efforts helped us to raise almost £750 in support of needy children.

County Player Ambassador

Fraser Horsfall continues to act as our ambassador and to spread the word to County fans. Thank you Fraser for your support for our cause – and keep up your good work on the field of play.

#stockportscounty

Greening the Schools

The heavy rains that have hit the villages made it possible for our vegetable garden to thrive. In addition our colleagues are also planting more flowers around the walkways. It will make our schools both greener and more beautiful.

The downside of this weather is that all too many children are arriving late and tired at school. Some parents are not allowing them to attend until they have worked in the family gardens. A move is on to use the local leaders and the church elders to talk to the families and to explain how their children are too tired to learn when they arrive in class so late in the day.

Keith,

FFoU

Note: We only send this blog to people who are interested in our work. If you no longer wish to receive it, please tell us and we shall immediately remove you from our mailing list.

Getting Back To Normal

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It’s a great pleasure to be able to report that things in Uganda have settled back into a routine and that everyone is getting used to a more normal way of life once more.

The immediate good news is that the first term of the new school year was completed, end-of-term exams done and dusted and school reports produced. I hope that by the time you receive this copy of the Blog, sponsors will have received their Ugandan child’s first report for two years. It has taken longer to get them out than anticipated after so long without any, so if your child’s report hasn’t yet arrived, please be patient. We are working on it.

The sadness is that the results are less good for many of the girls and boys than we would have hoped for under normal circumstances. Their lives have been pulled apart and it will take a lot of catching up.

I can promise you that our colleagues on the spot are working flat out to make sure that the youngsters do not lose out permanently.

School Uniforms

A long time ago (or so it now seems), a good number of sponsors paid for school uniforms for their girls and boys. Of course the children didn’t receive them. But we haven’t forgotten your generosity and we are now getting on with the distribution.

#schooluniforms

The perimeter wall at Bulumbu

This is already making a big difference to the security of the school, separating the learning environment from the village world outside.

#schoolsinuganda

Forever Friends of Uganda and Stockport County

Many of you already know about the close connection between Forever Friends of Uganda and Stockport County, the football team I have supported since my childhood, some 74 years ago.

#sponsoring

County supporters sponsor children’s education, are associate members, are charity trustees and valued donors. Two of the girls who are being cared for in the Little Angels Children’s Home at Bubebbere are known as the Stockport County Girls because their places there were financed by winnings from the half-time draw.

We have recently been in close contact with Steve Bellis who is President of the Club. He has been very hands-on in helping us to try to cement the link. In mid-April, we were given a two-page spread in the matchday programme and on the same day he spoke very warmly about our work to corporate guests at the pre-match meal.

I do hope that we shall be able to build on this more formal link as time goes by. Watch this space!

#foreverfriendsofuganda

Another plus for our sponsorship programme

Two previously sponsored ex-students – Willy Kaweesi and Ivan Kizito – visited the school last week to say hello to George (the founding father of the whole project there) and to say thank you for the sponsorship programme and to those who funded their school lives. Well done lads. From little boys to working men.

#sponsoringprogramme

Upkeep

We have already reported about the painting, renovation and urgent upkeep of the classrooms and children’s home that had to be done before the reopening. Of course it is a never-ending problem.

#bubebbere

The roadway to the children’s home had been badly affected by heavy rainfall and needed major upgrading. The classroom floors and blackboards required attention during the school holidays and it was also necessary (when isn’t it?) to tidy up the grounds.

#schoolinuganda

An additional problem was the need to replace beds in the Little Angels Children’s Home. Phew! Will it ever end?

#childrenhome

The Skills Centre

It is great to be able to report that the skills centre at Bulumbu is up and operating again. Our colleagues are helping girls to acquire a range of skills, and most importantly to learn to sew and to produce the reusable sanitary pads which make such an important improvement to their young lives.

#skillscentre

Keith,

FFOU

Note: We only send this blog to people who are interested in our work. If you no longer wish to receive it, please tell us and we shall immediately remove you from our mailing list.

Sad but True

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Three weeks ago I prepared an optimistic Blog which looked forward to a return to normal for Ugandan children. It is heart-breaking that I have had to scrap that article. From an improving situation in the villages, they have fallen to the worst position yet.

First of all the government put all schools back into lockdown for another 42 days, intending that classes would resume in mid-July. But now? Who knows?

The number of cases and, sadly, fatal attacks have risen sharply. In the villages where we work, more than 20 people have died (although it is likely to be more by now). Everybody has lost someone in their family. Previously there hadn’t been a single case in Bulumbu or Bubebbere. As I understand it, this has been caused in part by people fleeing the city. This includes those who brought their dead to the rural areas to be buried.

There is a chronic shortage of vaccines. In a country of 40 million people, they have received fewer than a million doses. Testing charges and costs for those hospitalised are prohibitive for people who struggle to feed themselves. Patients in a hospital’s high dependency unit are billed daily for (among other charges) doctors’ and nursing costs as well as basics such as the provision of oxygen.

When I started to write this, the staff of Little Angels and Golden College were planning to meet in order to seek a way forward. Since then the government has locked down transport and people are not allowed to move from one district to another. Additionally a night-time curfew has been imposed.

If it were not for the finance that we provide, the 3 schools would be at great risk of closing permanently. Already 600 Ugandan schools and their buildings are up for sale; the futures of a generation of children are at great risk.

We are very grateful

As many of you are aware, I was very worried that the Ugandan school lockdown would adversely affect the sponsorship programme. You have been wonderful. Not a single sponsor has dropped out.

Even better. Since the start of the school closures early last year, 12 new sponsors have come on board. That is an amazing and heart-warming fact.

I recently made a direct appeal on social media platforms. A new kind of poverty has hit the villages where we work – caused purely by the Covid pandemic. City dwelling parents who could no longer afford to care for their children abandoned boys and girls with relatives who are themselves in poverty. We wanted to get these youngsters back in school.

The appeal immediately brought in three new sponsors.

Two abandoned children happy to be sponsored

You are now directly sponsoring 123 children, the highest number to date. In addition to that, we are supporting 22 girls in the Little Angels Children’s Home.

The Skills Centre at Bulumbu

The construction of the skills centre was initially delayed by heavy rains, but finally the contractors got back to work. And then …… as the government has stopped people from moving from community to community, progress came to a halt. The struggle is now on to find local labourers who can continue the work.

In a positive development, we are now able to use these concrete blocks which are being made at our Vocational Centre at Golden College in Nsaggu. But now this seems a minor bright spot in the whole run of things.

Amazon Smile

Thank you to those who have made us your nominated charity at Amazon Smile. Please carry on as before to give us this small but steady income.

However for those who prefer to use your mobile phones, there is a new AmazonSmile app that you can download. Your purchases cost you no more, but we also get something from it.

Note: The situation is changing so rapidly that I have had to rewrite the leading article several times. Please bear with us. Things may well have changed again by the time this edition has been published.

Keith,

Note: We only send this blog to people who are interested in our work. If you no longer wish to receive it, please tell us and we shall immediately remove you from our mailing list.