A tiny pupil at St. Joseph Magogo. A future leader of Uganda?

“How am I going to pay school fees this term?” If there is one question I hear over and over again it is this one.  Like everywhere, quality education is a priority, and here parents feel the urgency of ensuring it all the more, because if children miss out, they will be trapped in the same cycle of poverty and social problems that too many others face.  For the majority of people, especially in rural areas, who are struggling just to feed their families and extended family members, the right of a child to obtain a quality education can seem completely out of reach.  Under a new policy in Uganda, primary education is supposed to be free to all, an excellent objective, but the resources are missing to implement it and schools are hopelessly overcrowded.  Only 1 teacher is provided for every 60 students, regardless of the grade they are in, and teachers lack the support and resources they need to do their job well.   Many of these schools are even missing the school building itself.  With these obstacles to education, one-third are left illiterate.  Just Like My Child has started its newest school building project to address some of these issues.

Ben and Beatrice, our wonderful community partners from our first school building project in Katikamu, are also professors at the local teachers’ college and monitor government schools in the region.  Some of the neediest schools in the area were identified with their help.  One of those schools was St. Joseph in the remote village of Magogo.   Magogo is an example of a community that would not give up trying and hoping for a good school.   Even the road to this farming village is difficult to find, but is hard to imagine that there are many other communities with as much heart and motivation as this one.    When I visited the school in August to see how they felt about partnering with Just Like My Child, at least 100 parents, educators and community members packed into the classroom.  They showed me that they had collected bricks and made more than 25 trips to collect sand and stone–almost enough to complete the entire project– in just one month!  They told me, “we are ready to begin construction today!”  There are more than 300 children in grades 1 to 7 attending St. Joseph School, even though there are only 2 usable classrooms.   The rest of the students study outside under the mango trees, or in two other half built classrooms, that the community built by itself, but was unable to roof or finish.  If it rains the majority of students have to go home, making for an impossible situation in the rainy seasons which lasts several months.  The school was given only 3 teachers for the 7 classes, so parents work hard each term to raise the funds to pay an additional 3 teachers.

This community elder worked hard to collect materials to build and comes every single day to monitor the progress, he wants to know, "will this school be beautiful?" He is committed to having a suitable learning environment for the children of his community.

This is the classroom block started by the community, with the new office, a veranda is built on the front so that it will match up with the two new classrooms

Our community partner, Beatrice, visits the school often to provides the teachers with the support and guidance to ensure quality education

While construction is going on students are still having class, at the end of the day the Head Teacher has an assembly to ask them to help carry bricks for their new school before they go home

And they are happy to help

Current classes, studying outside

Building the staff house which is already up to the roofing level also! This day instead of having the regular parent teacher meetings the community helps with construction.

Children in one of the two existing classrooms clap and cheer, they are so excited for the addition to their school