Trustees Visit October 2011

Information about our visit can be found under the different Project Headings. Further developments will be included under @News and Future plans' as they occur.

Hostel

The charity would like to purchase land in the future on which to build a safe hostel for children and accommodation for teachers. 

Some children live too far out of Soroti to travel easily to school every day and therefore have to stay locally either in lodgings or with people they know. The students may be underfed, and sometimes have to work in the evenings to earn their keep. Their education suffers, and we understand that guardians would be very happy to pay for children to stay near the school in a hostel. 

The hostel accommodation would be supervised by teachers. Most teachers do not live in Soroti and have to pay a high rent (half their salary) for accommodation. They would welcome any initiative to reduce these costs and the children would also benefit from their care.  However, we have only very limited funding for such a project at present; the land and hostel could cost around £30,000.

We are exploring ways in which funds could be raised. We are delighted that St George's School in Broadstairs have agreed to take this on as a project. Other funding sources will also be needed

The charity's priority as at October 2011 is to make sure the school is properly equipped and the teachers properly remunerated.

Further Education

This is another future objective for the charity. The charity trustees would like to introduce classes for years 5 and 6- ie the next 2 years after students have obtained the Ugandan certificate of Education. However, we have no funding to build further classrooms at present, but would welcome interest. The School and the Hostel are the first priorities though.

Special Needs

Many children were brought to the Trustees attention during our visit in October 2011. Some were severely disabled and needed physiotherapy and wheelchairs, others needed operations, some very urgently. We are unsure of the costs at present.

We have a designated Special Needs fund of £5,500 and this is likely to be depleted rapidly. Fund raising ideas for Special Needs would be welcomed. These children really touch our hearts and so desperately need help.