A New School in Rwanda

One of the main reasons for our visit to Uganda and Rwanda in July was to see the progress being made on HUGS' latest school which is called St Therese's at Rukira about 2 hours from Kigali the capital of Rwanda.
We became involved in February 2011 and formed a division within HUGS to fund raise for the building of a Primary School to replace a group of really deadfull rooms (more like animal houses) by a new school for the 300 or so children.
You all helped and the Sisters who run the school were able to get support from charities in Holland and Spain.

The Official Opening Ceremony was great fun with lots of music ad dance and naturally quite a lot of speeches. Since most of the children and quite a few adults speak no English they must have found this bit rather boring but they did not let it show.

The school has 9 classes plus a very smart toilet block and wash areas.

The site has been landscaped very well and after the next rainy season there should be some good gardens to make the site even more attractive.

In the future there is a need for three more rooms and then possible boarding accommodation and a secondary section but we have not committed to these things at present because there are more pressing needs at St Zoes schools

Health and Education

One of the inevitable consequences of visits to Africa is that they a bit contagious. Tell a few friends and they end up visiting too and that is what happened with some great Obstetricians and Gynaecologists from St. Mary's Hospital in Manchester.
They visited the Virika Womens Hospital in Fort Portal as part of a training and twinning visit and in a week 60 major surgical operations were carried out bringing back a life with dignity to women damaged during childbirth.
It's like starting my life again, said one of the young mothers on her way home a week after their operation.

Uganda Visit July 2013

The Blog has been a bit quiet lately because Denise and Peter went to Uganda and Rwanda to review progress on the projects. First, St Zoes.
Our visit was to review the future plans for the school, to review school administration and to launch the ORANGE funded Internet Cafe.

We have been concerned that the Vocational School is very much behind programme. But things are improving. The building is almost complete with final painting and guttering to be completed. Some classes have started, mainly in Tropical Agriculture and Animal Husbandry. Some tools for wood working are also shown but more are needed.

Thanks to a grant from the Paris based Fondation ORANGE we have been able to install an Internet cafe at the school. It is solar powered with one server and 5 terminals. The regional Director of ORANGE cut the ribbon on JUly 15th and commissioning will be done before the end of July. We plan to make a small (25 pence) per term addition to school fees and make the service free to all staff and children. It will have wifi so smart phones can access the system. Great care has been given to security and web site access of course.

More about St Zoes later and we will cover visit to Western Uganda and Rwanda over the next week or two.

St Zoes now has about 14 buildings and is very impressive.

A "must see" video

Although this is not really about Uganda Schools I think it is something we might not all know about and it could be a lifesaver.

Look at You Tube and enter 112 Emergency Services.

There is a very well produced and short video which might prove to be a real lifesaver.

Fellow Trustee Denise Ead and I are going to Uganda and Rwanda in early July to visit our schools and to attend the Official Opening of the Rwanda School which now has 9 class rooms and over 300 children.

We will tell you more when we return

HUGS Annual Golf Event

Thanks to the leadership of Trustee Charlotte Brinsley aided by Bob Blundell, John Glynn, and Carolyn Brinsley we had the fourth HUGS Golf Event on June 5th at Romiley Golf Club

The weather was great and 18 teams played in a Shotgun start competition. There were lots of great prizes and nearly sponsored very generously supported with prizes and also with teams

The whole event raised just over £5000 all of which will go to our schools in Uganda and Rwanda. Thanks to everyone who took part.

All the pictures can be found at Golf Photos 2013

Why are we helping in Rwanda?

I got an invitation to visit Rukira in the Eastern province of Rwanda about 2 years ago and with memories of the 1994 genocide in my memory I made the visit with some trepidation.
Rwanda is a beautiful country and if we could help to bring really top quality education to children of all tribal backgrounds then maybe we could do something to help with the reconciliation needed.

This week the Observer Magazine published the first part of an article about Rwanda and the actions taken to try to heal the divide.

Here is a part of the article

Paying the price: survivor Madalena Mukariemeria with her daughter Lucie (left) and adopted daughter Asunta, whose parents were murdered in the genocide. Photograph: Andy Hall for the Observer

Lucie Niyigena's seven-year-old mind was a jumble of panic and confusion as she stepped over the brutalised, bleeding corpse of her grandfather and fled through the back door of her town's Catholic church. But, as Lucie remembers the terror nearly two decades later, she was driven by a single overwhelming urge – not to be separated from her mother in death.

"All I could think of was to be with my mother whatever happened," she says. "Even today, even though I want to get out of this place where so many terrible things happened, where there are still people who want them to happen again, where we can see the killers walking on the streets every day, I can never leave my mother."

read the whole story on The Observer.

Is it worth it?

Readers will remember that our Good Shepherd School is for children with learning disabilities. Families with children with disability also have perhaps 5 other children. Is it worth spending any money sending such children to school? They would find themselves in classes of up to 120 and would get little of no personal attention. They are often bullied too.

Good Shepherd has very small class sizes and this year we decided to fund three of the best performing children so that they could go to secondary school. We have just received the end of term report cards and one is shown here.

Coming 10th out of 60 is a really excellent achievement and makes all the work seem so worthwhile.

Sport in Fort Portal

BBC Radio has featured the question "why have Kenyan runners become world champion runners and won so many Medals in the top events?"

High altitude has helped of course but the real reason probably goes back to a school at Itoe called St Patrick's. A dedicated teacher decided to raise the aspirations of his pupils by giving great attention to sport.
This has now become legendary and even today European athletes often go there for training.

Fort Portal in Western Uganda is also pretty high and like children all over the world those at Good Shepherd love sport.

Trustee Matt Houghton who runs The HQ Coaching Centre in Merseyside has been encouraging the children to get more involved in Sport and he suggested that we call our lead teacher the "Sport Development Manager" Roland was really proud to have this role and has arranged a series of football and netball competitive matches for Good Shepherd and nearby schools.
Small beginings but well done Matt and Roland!

Umuganda

The strangest customs search I have ever been through was when I went by road from Uganda to Rwanda.

No search for cigarettes or alcohol but a very thorough search for plastic bags or plastic bottles. They are not permitted in the country as part of a programme aimed at keeping the country free of mess and litter

And it really works. But then they also have UMUGANDA.

In Rwanda, there is a mandatory community service day from 8:00am to 11:00am, on the last Saturday of each month called Umuganda meaning community service.  The day is called umunsi w’umuganda, meaning “contribution made by the community which is designed to be a day of contribution and building the country by citizens themselves. By law all able bodied persons above the age of 18 and below 65  are expected to participate in volunteer community work. The start of this practice goes back to colonial times and is still practiced today. 

Participation in Umuganda is usually supervised by a manager, or Umudugudu chairperson who oversees the effectiveness and efficiency ofcommunity participation.On this day, business activity halts, public transportation is limited, and people are seen everywhere working. People participate in cleaning streets, cutting grass and trimming bushes along roads, or repairing public facilities or building houses for vulnerable persons. People with particular skills offer their services for free on this day.  For example, doctors may offer free medical examination.

The benefits of Umuganda are not merely economic.  The day is intended to build community involvement and strengthen cohesion between persons of different background and levels.   One such a benefit is that people can access authorities to articulate their needs and voice opinions on various issues.

The labour cost from Umuganda contributes to national development programs.  By reaping the rewards of the volunteer labor and by having more capital to invest in the country, Umuganda has contributed to the growth and development of the Rwanda   .

Our Head Teacher at the Rukira school is planning to work with the Umugganda Local team to see if they can level the school site in preparation for putting in a good drainage system.

Help for Teachers

Learning from Uganda is a web based teaching aid for both students and teachers who may be interested in learning about Uganda and Africa.

It has stories, video and pictures, and lots of information about the country and its people and culture.

Teachers can have free access and students can use it with project work. It was designed and produced by HUGS Trustee, Denise Ead.

If it encourages some local fund raising for HUGS that would be welcome but we are more interested in sharing information about the wonderful country and the kindness of it people.

To access the site please click here

Manchester 10K Run

Once again we are putting a team into the Manchester 10K run on May 26th this year.

This is a really great fun event and we have a small number of places reserved for HUGS Supporters to take up. Entry is £50 per person but we have already paid this.

So what would like runners to do is to raise at least £50 and £100 is a nice target so that all the profit can go to the charity.

There are special categories for children too and the Manchester 10k Web site gives details

http://www.greatrun.org/Events/Event.aspx?id=4


The picture shows Trustee Charlotte with her team last year.

Do contact us for details. But hurry because these can be in great demand.

Child Mortality

This is a rather unusual thing for me to put on the Blog but I found it quite fascinating.

It is a short video and can be viewed by clicking on the link

http://www.gapminder.org/videos/reducing-child-mortality-a-moral-and-environmental-imperative/

Comments would be welcome.

And on quite another thing here is a picture taken in February 2013 to show the progress on our school in Rwanda. 9 Classes will be complete by March this year and that means that 280 children will now have really lovely space for their schooling instead of the farm buildings whey were in last year.

How are they doing?

Every year one of the really big news stories in the Uganda Press is all about the Primary and Examinations which mark the end of Primary School.

Estimates vary but up to 500,000 children take the examination and it is a real worry to parents and to teachers. Very strict control of the School examiners is done and they are locked away for weeks to mark the papers with little or no access to outside pressures.

So when February arrives you can imagine the feeling of expectancy.

11,500 schools and examination centres take part and of these about 83% are Public UPE Schools and about 17% are private schools run by charities or NGO's (like St Zoes and Good Shepherd) or they are run as businesses.

St Zoes has been entering each year since 2003 and this is the best year ever. 25 children got Division ! and 25 Division 2. No Division 3 and no failures.

This put St Zoes in the top 4.6% of ALL THE SCHOOLS IN UGANDA. A really good achievement. Local Schools in Mubende Town did really well also and have set a bit of a challenge to St Zoes for the future.

St Zoes charges rather less than the other schools and of course does have a number of free places which we fund.

But the other big news was at Good Shepherd. Children with learning disability simply do not enter these exams. But this year three children all got Division 2 results which is pretty amazing and a real testament to Sr. Teresa and to her staff.

Well done everyone.And for all our supporters we hope you find it rewarding to know that your generosity is getting great results.

Nest time we will try to update you on what opportunities have been taken up by children who completed their education and went on to Further Education, University, or careers

Germany and Sternsinger

Trustee Denise and I went to Turkenfeld near Munich for the Feast of the Epiphany when throughout Germany the Annual Sternsinger takes place.
Despite awful weather children dress up as the Magi or Three Kings (Caspar Melchior and Balthazzar) and go from house to house in all the towns and cities to bring a message of good will to everyone. Each King recites a part of the blessing when the householder opens the door and then a record of the visit is posted over the door itself. We accompanied one of the groups until we became too cold and too wet to continue. The children started at 9.30 in the morning and finished at 4.00. They finished the town the next day which was Sunday.

It was very clear that the people were really looking forward to the day and had already prepared some presents for the children and a donation to the charity which was the schools in Uganda. Over the two days about 9000 € was raised which is amazing.

The major newspapers featured the event with a picture of children in Berlin giving good wishes to Chancellor Merkel.

Bavaria of course is famous for Oompapa Brass Bands and Lederhosen and our wonderful host Gerhard is the Principal of Turkenfeld Band. Despite the small population of 3000 people the band has over 300 members and we were treated to a wonderful concert to celebrate an 85th birthday.

The visit gave us a great opportunity to spend time with Dr John Kyazze who was the founder of the schools and our inspiration and at the same time to engage with our very generous hosts in Turkenfeld.

.......in a Stable

My visit to Rwanda back in February 2011 was to visit Sr Mary and to see what she and her colleagues had been able to do following the Rwanda genocide.
They had concentrated on the things they knew best, Health and Education and had started completely empty handed in 1995. No money and no income but huge courage.

The early work with children helped by the community managed to get a small primary school started and that is what I saw. The buildings were begged and borrowed and some looked more like stables for animals than class rooms for children.

HUGS was able to fund a design study and costing exercise in June 2011 and the plans appealed to a major Dutch charity who funded the first four class rooms of a new school. HUGS and the imagination of a key donor and trustee raised about £20,000 to pay for two more rooms.

Today December 22nd we heard that a Spanish charity has decided to help and their donation will pay for a further 3 classes making 9 in total.

This really is fantastic news. It will all help to give a really top quality education to the children. It will probably finish the primary level project and then we start thinking about the secondary accommodation. Tomorrow's President of Rwanda is at school today.

Lots of good things start in a stable and we never know where they will end

Best wishes for Christmas to all our readers

Peter, Denise, Joanna, Chris, Bob, Charlotte and Matt

Rwanda and other things

Many thanks to Slater Heelis who are sponsoring the Annual Newsletter this year. We felt that many of our supporters would prefer a hard copy but if you are happy to have an electronic one please let us know and we can save the huge postage cost. We will be sending them out after Christmas.

CHRISTMAS IN UGANDA  has now been translated into German and is being sold near Munich by Gerhard and his friends. But you can of course get a copy from Denise Ead or me or download it from Amazon Books. There is a link on this Blog.

Our Student Maurice is studying at Kigali University and here is what he says about things which are sone thought from a group of students.

my friends are carrying different courses at the university, some are carrying Agriculture, Business studies and other courses, and after their studies at the University they hope that they would utilize apply their acquired skills from the university to create and innovate their own new small businesses instead of moving up seeking for jobs from others.

We know America and Europe as continents made up of some countries that have strong economies with the highest gross domestic product and developed infrastructure, politically strong with good democracy and strong military capacity, and always aim at helping other countries in other continents like Africa to move out from poverty through different programs and aid.

We know micro finance projects as financial services and programs intended to lift low income individuals and micro entrepreneurs out of poverty, and are important because they provide financial services like the provision of soft loans, teaching how to save, insurance and training which also contribute to the development.

If they would bet a huge amount of money to create job what we think would be the best way to spend it is to invest through micro finance projects specifically in sectors like agriculture since about 80% of Rwandans depend on agriculture, and we think by the introduction of methods like agricultural mechanization, application of fertilization, irrigation where necessary and other methods to develop agriculture, we think would increase the output and lead to development while giving jobs many.

The health care system is somehow developing since the health centers have increased to the extent that each sector in Rwanda has its own, there is the medical insurance called “mutuelle de santé” which is for all Rwandans, and is paid periodically every year by every  family, and this has reduced the number of people who used to die at home, and through different programs people are encouraged to fight killer diseases like malaria by providing mosquito nets and also are taught how to fight AIDS.

DRC is not very near is about 100km from the campus, and our beliefs about this issue of rebels called M23 in DRC, only that we know that it was formed out of misunderstandings and failure of the DRC government to fulfill the agreements made on 23^rd march 2009, with think Rwanda doesn’t help M23 because we think no interest would in helping the rebel group to fight the neighboring country.  (DRC is known as Congo.)

Thank you ORANGE

A few months ago thanks to the inspired idea which came from friends at Taylor O'Brien (probably Manchester's best Media Companies) they put in a bid to ORANGE to fund an Internet Cafe at our St Zoe's School near Mubende;

We heard today that the bid was successful.

This could make a huge difference for the children and staff and also for local villagers

Thank you Orange!

Denise's Book goes international

You will remember Christmas In Uganda the lovely illustrated children's book written by Alex Tracey and illustrated by Dominique Byron and which Trustee Denise Ead published in hard copy last year.

it sells really well with enquiries coming from Europe and USA.

It is also available for your iPad from the Amazon Kindle Books store for £1.93.

But now it has been published by friends in Germany. Well done Gerhard!

Some special children

Sr. Theresa and her team at Fort Portal have been involved with the annual Ugandan Primary School year 7 examinations. This is rather unusual because children with special needs in learning are very unlikely to ever get this far. But as she says "Disability is not Inability" and we had the first 4 children take the exams this week. Here is what she writes about them.

DISABILITY DOES NOT MEAN INABILITY is really true as these children have made it to the end!

Allow me to  write little about each Child:

1.  Mwebesa Brian:  He has learning difficulties like Dyslexia and also letter writing problems especially when shaping letters e.g instead of writing b he writes d.  He is also with behaviour disorder, he is a short tempered person and he doesn't want to be forced to do what is not of his will or wish.

2.  Katusabe Ester:  She has short attention span.  She concentrates on anything for more than a few seconds at a time and then loses morale.  She is not settled in class when given and activity and she likes moving up and down all the time.  She is also Autistic.

3.  Kemigisa Rosette:  She has emotional problems and always stressed up as she is a total orphan who lives with her uncle who doesn't care for her, we try our best to cater for her school fees and other basic needs.  She forgets easily and she is always absent minded in class due to the above problems, and always quarrels with every body.  She shows very less or little interest in studies.  We tried our level best to offer guidance and counselling which has helped her through, and we thank God who has helped us.

4.  Kabagaya Mary:  She is unable to concentrate on anything for a long time.  She has difficulty in remembering things and she has a problem in writing correct spellings of words.  She delays to respond to questions or perform any given activity.  She also has dyslexia problems, and is also total orphan.

All these children have severe intellectual impairment as professionals of special needs, we teachers tried to give them individual, special attention inside and outside the classroom.  

The classroom shown below is the one our supporters paid for this year and it contains a Primary 7 class, a hall, and a vocational space for the girls. We have a new woodwork department for the boys and this is nearby

Our Rwanda University Student

In developing our work to focus more on educating and less on buildings we have started a range of scholarships for school children and also for further education.

Mourice is our third University Student who started in Rwanda this 

Here is what he told us;

National University of Rwanda is the largest University in Rwanda located in the city of Butare in south of the country and was established in 1963. It has about 13000 students who always come from different parts of the country and bordering countries like Burundi, Uganda, Democratic republic of Congo and Tanzania.

I am carrying the faculty of Economics and Management, the department of Management, option is Bachelor of science with honors in Accounting. For this first year I am studying in modules which include Basic Mathematics, Principles of Economics, Statistics, Financial Accounting, Information Technology, and Skills for students. From second year I will start specializing in Accounting Sciences.

In my studies here at the college I meet different important people with different skills including the Lectures, and I am also able to make new friends. And there are other different activities carried out here like sports, clubs for research, organized programs for teaching students like Anti AIDS programs.

Fortunately, I live in the hostels of the University, because of the big number of students, all students usually don’t get this chance of living there.