Highgate School Sponsored Walk

The pupils and staff at Highgate School raised a final total (including gift aid) of £76,250 in October 2009.

This was a fantastic effort by the whole school, with children from ages three to 18 walking 8 kms. All the pupils and staff raised money from sponsors - a big thank you for everybody who was involved and all the donors.

The funds will be used to build a science block for the next stage of development of the Great Lakes High School and for other developments needed over the coming year.

The new High School has been a major success and the third year group of students started in February 2010, making 4 year groups in all. Each year another year group joins, which is why this funding is so vital to build the classrooms and infrastructure to cater for the increasing numbers of children.

After ten years of hard work and wonderful generosity, we are now in clear sight of our vision of providing continuous education for the children of Kinchisi: from the four primary schools, the new High School and the Great Lakes College (which we are working hard to upgrade to University standard).

Become a Friend of Great Lakes High School!

Great Lakes High School opened in February 2008 and now has pupils in three year-groups: Senior 1, Senior 2 and Senior 3. Exciting developments to the site have been made recently include the building of an accommodation block for staff, extensions to the boys' and girls' dormitories and a new classroom block. A library and science laboratory have opened.

However, the pupils themselves are in urgent need of support: many are orphans or come from families so poor that they are virtually destitute.

You can help these very needy children in any of four ways - or all four!

• Contribute £20: this amount will buy a foam mattress and a blanket for a boarder, many of whom are too poor to buy their own
• Orphans need special help to remain at school: can you donate to the Orphans' Fund?
• Sponsor a child: £180 a year or £15 a month will pay a child's educational costs and meals for a year
• Think about your will: could you leave a donation to CHIFCOD?

Remember the COST of CHIFCOD's work and the urgent needs of the High School pupils. Becoming a FRIEND OF GREAT LAKES HIGH SCHOOL can help to meet those costs and give the children a secure education - and a brighter future.

High School Update

A letter to supporters, including families and staff at Highgate School

Just over a year ago, in October of 2007, pupils and staff from across the Highgate School Foundation took part in a sponsored walk to raise the money to build a new school in Uganda. Many of you reading this letter took part in or supported this event, which raised a magnificent £64,000; and this letter is to bring you up to date with how that money has been spent and how the new school is progressing.

In September 2008, following my retirement as Principal of the Pre-Prep, I went out to Uganda to work as a volunteer in the CHIFCOD schools. CHIFCOD is a charitable trust committed to supporting children and their families in a remote area of south-western Uganda called Kinkiisi, in the province of Kanungu which borders Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. It has created four primary schools, a Further Education College and now, with the money raised by Highgate School, the Great Lakes High School. During the three months leading up to Christmas I taught each week in three of the CHIFCOD educational establishments: Kirima Primary School, Great Lakes Regional College and the new High School; and I will be returning in late January for another term of challenging but hugely rewarding work.

The High School has been built in a remote location towards the great Rift Valley that covers much of Western Uganda - a hot, dry area much of which is occupied by the nearby Queen Elizabeth National Park, home to lions, elephants, primates and a multitude of other animals and birds. Set on a hillside, the school has ravishing views of the rolling green Ugandan hills that surround it and is approached by a quiet winding road that weaves through tiny villages, lush banana plantations and fields full of giant termite hills. A sweeping driveway leads up from the road and this has been named "Highgate Drive" in honour of the school that brought it into being. In its impressive and lofty setting the school almost has the air of a university campus and dominates the landscape surrounding it. The campus is made up of several large single-storey buildings: classroom blocks, a spacious hall, an administrative block, two boarding houses (most children board, sleeping in three-tier bunks in the stark dormitories), latrines, a crop-store and other outhouses. The school grounds have been attractively planted with flowers and shrubs, and the land that surrounds it is cultivated by students from the Great Lakes College taking part in a scheme to fund their own fees through agricultural projects. Building began immediately the money had been raised and the school opened last February with two Senior 1 (Year 9) classes and one Senior 2 class (Year 10).

Teaching English one day a week at the school has given me the opportunity to get to know the staff and pupils and also to find out about school life in Uganda. Some of you have, I know, been following my online diary at www.juliachallender.blogspotcom but for those of you who have not I can tell you that the people in this area are extremely poor, most being subsistence farmers who rely on what they can grow to feed their families. Many children are malnourished but at CHIFCOD schools they are provided with three meals a day: posho (maize porridge) for breakfast, boiled dried beans and posho for lunch and the same for supper. This dull diet is gratefully received by the children who at home would get at best one meal a day. Education is seen as the only way out of the relentless cycle of poverty that the people here are trapped in, and as a result the pupils work extremely hard. They rise at 5.30am for their first prep session at 6.00am, and continue studying until 9.30pm at night. They are diligent, well-behaved and highly motivated: they are desperate to gain good enough qualifications to get a job when they leave school, or to be able to study further. Standards of teaching at the school are high, and despite the difficult circumstances of having little in the way of resources or equipment, the standard secondary curriculum leading to international GCE exams is delivered.

The building of the High School has made a reality the opportunity for a good secondary education for these impoverished children and they, and their families too, are hugely grateful. Everyone who took part in the sponsored walk can feel immensely proud and pleased with what the money has made possible and I can vouch for the high quality of the buildings, the staff and the standards being attained. It has been a remarkable and tremendously worthwhile achievement.

However, I have also seen for myself the struggle that many families have to provide the small amount of fees that the school relies on to cover its running costs. There is a very urgent need for more sponsors who would be willing to pay a child's fees for the coming year. This sum, £180, is so little by our standards yet a huge amount to a poor villager. Sadly, there are a number of bright, promising pupils who will not be able to take up their places at the High School when the new school year begins in February because they simply cannot find the money for the fees. Last year, some of the money raised by the sponsored walk provided scholarships but this year that help is not available. If any of you can - even in the current difficult financial climate - find the money to sponsor a pupil for a year, this will be met with humbling gratitude. As a way of giving a fellow human-being the chance of a brighter future it could not be bettered: every penny will go towards his or her education and welfare. These children are so deserving: yet their future hangs in the balance. If you feel you can help please go to CHIFCOD's website: www.volunteeruganda.org where more details can be found. I will be so grateful to you.

"Please, please give our thanks to Highgate School" was said to me over and over again before I left to return home for

Christmas. What you have done for these people means so much to them and I know they would want me, on their behalf, to wish you a very Happy New Year alongside their grateful thanks.

With my greetings and best wishes to you all,

Julia Challender

Greetings to you from Uganda

Since my last report we had the failed Kenya elections that led to a closure of the fuel and imports route from Mombasa to Uganda that saw fuel up by 500% in January and February and cement up from 19,000 a bag to 28,000 shillings where it has remained to date. Other major building materials like timber and iron sheets and labour felt the same impact due to the resulting inflation that has not really come down at all but rather keeps on going up!

We ended up with about half the facilities that we could have established with the amounts of money under normal financial circumstances. Also because of late construction and advertising we ended up with 100 students instead of the 200 for the High School that we had hoped for. This low number that supports a full teaching force together with the food prices that have nearly trebled in Uganda since January have given us a very hard year with most schools falling behind on salaries and having heavy food debts. We have also suspended building with the double storied classrooms at Kirima and the classrooms at Great Lakes High School remaining unfinished!

We have put up various pieces of land for sale, after realizing that the school gardens strategy is not bearing fruit and if we get buyers in time we could raise some funds to complete the unfinished buildings. We are persevering and keeping up the three major tasks of building and maintaining facilities, paying teachers and feeding children. It is clear that within the next two years with your help, all the building work will be done as funds, now going to the costly construction activities, will be concentrated on improving quality of life and education for children and teachers.

We are very grateful for John Lewis and John Rutherford's visit and for the generosity that saved Great Lakes High School from a very bad year.

We now have five people advancing their studies. John Akarambuzi, Godfrey Arineitwe and Ambose Bakwasiibwe are doing MAs while Precious Kibingo and James Niwabine are doing first degrees with the aim of giving long term academic leadership to the college and the other institutions.

Best wishes to you all.

Reverend Hamlet Mbabazi
30 September 2008

High School Opens

Greetings from Uganda. I visited the new campus for Great lakes High School a few days ago and met for the first time the 100 pioneer students of the school. Full of adventure and fun, the students of whom about 60% are boys and 40% girls are from a wide area in the Kanungu District so soon of them came as far as 30 kilometres away to live and study in the new school for all the goals it is promising to provide the best quality education in the district.

The initial 100 students have been able to come because we are using GBP 12,000 out of the money raised by Highgate School to sponsor them while they are paying for some basic items at a cost of GBP 30. This first group can be seen in the group photos as I was sharing a vision with them for the future. Photos of the individual children are to be taken on Wednesday when they all have their uniforms just being completed! They insist on having their official photos taken is school uniform with each students acting their ambition!

A team of 13 teachers under the leadership of Mr John Karoro whose photos will be coming with the album of photos that we are preparing is doing a good job teaching both arts and sciences. Science equipment and text books are very expensive and while we have spent some GBP 2,000 on these items we are still very very short of the basic needs of the school!

We have also completed to usable condition the administration block, girls’ dormitory, boys’ dormitory, dining Hall, Kitchen, four classrooms and a laboratory, sanitary blocks, and the generator house together with the installation of a 7.5 KVA diesel operated generator. Highgate Road which can be seen in the foreground the photo of the school. The biggest problems being faced is housing for the staff who have to walk three kilometres to school every morning. I hope that we will gradually put in place many one roomed units!

We are having a board meeting on 4th March at the campus of the new school to streamline the administrative systems that we hope to introduce and change in CHIFCOD this year and among them is a quarterly newsletter. Eleanor Nyamishana who has been an accountant in Great lakes College has taken on the role of CHIFCOD Internal Auditor she is already on the move developing a policy in interaction with the various school bursars.

Many thanks everybody for making this happen for our community and God’s Kingdom! We look forward to having guests this summer.

Hamlet Mbabazi
24 Feb 2008

Building our New High School

Building the Great Lakes High School is the most recent, and one of the most ambitious, CFIFCOD projects.

Now that the four local primary schools are well established and running so successfully, children are reaching secondary school age without good education opportunities.

We need to cater for an intake of around 100 children each year, so once the school is fully working in five years we need facilities for between 600 and 700 children working on a four-year ’O level‘ and a two-year ’A level‘ syllabus.

This requires a total of 12 buildings at a cost of £10,000 each.

15 acres of land for the school has already been purchased from a bequest and funds for the first three buildings have already been donated. This has enabled work to start and the picture on the right shows the first buildings being constructed.

In November 2007, Highgate School in North London are organising a sponsored walk for all pupils and staff. It is hoped that this will raise £30,000 - enough to fund a further three buildings and get the High School operational.

When the school is open in January 2008, we will need to find sponsors for fees, food and accommodation for some of the students as many families would otherwise not be able to send their children to school.

The High School is an exciting project and a vital link between the primary schools and the College. It takes the area of Kanungu a key step forward to its aim of a fully integrated education and development program to which enables the local people to build an economy that most of us take for granted - education, health and jobs.

Visit February 2010

Update from a recent Trustee visit:

• We had an official opening of the new science block; I was impressed with the building standard
• There has been a strong demand for places this year, resulting in the establishment of two classes at S1
• There are 246 children at the school
• The new Head Teacher, Ivan, is bright, committed and energetic
• There is now an urgent need for computer equipment
• The school also needs to purchase the truck which has been borrowed from the Youth Co-operative for two years
• A team of engineering students from Durham University is planning to build a hydro electricity generating capability for the school

Sponsors Update

After a fantastic effort and success in getting the High School built and opened, our next challenge is to get sponsors for the first 100 children. Sponsorship pays the running costs of the school as well as providing food and accommodation for the children.

Once again, Highgate School has led the way with the 12 Houses sponsoring an extra 20 children in January 2009. The Houses will have links with particular children, as will individual families who have sponsored. This brings the number of sponsored children to 51 - over half way to our target.

Other fund-raising activities at Highgate School, such as sponsored sports events, raised a total of £6,135 in December. Well done!

It costs only £15 per month to sponsor a child and help transform the life of the child, their family and the wider community. Just take a few minutes to click on the link in the left panel and print off a form.

Nets and Books Appeal - Update

The appeal for donations for mosquito nets and books for High School and Kirima Primary children has been a great success.

So far £7,002 has been raised by quizzes, sponsored runs, book sales and donations.

Thank you to Julia Challender and all her contacts who have made this possible. Julia will be buying the nets and books in Feb 2009 when she is back in Uganda.

Donations still welcome to enable more children to be safe from malaria and books and equipment for the schools. You can donate by printing off the donation form on (link on left hand panel).

Report on Visit to Uganda

Economic and political environment

Many difficulties and challenges became apparent to us during our visit, and it seems a good place to start to briefly list these. This is intended to help the reader to understand the environment within which Hamlet, his Staff and Trustees are having to operate. In particular, it should help in understanding the extreme financial difficulties that existed at Great Lakes High School at the time of our visit.

1. Deteriorating State services including education, health care and roads.
2. 45% of Government expenditure funded by borrowing.
3. Massive inflation including fuel, cement and construction labour.
4. Food prices had trebled in 6 months.
5. The Ugandan schilling had strengthened against pound with the consequence that our sponsorship money is buying less in Uganda.
6. Increased teachers' salaries due to inflation.
7. Kenyan tribal clashes had closed main supply route for construction materials during building of Great Lakes High School, causing shortages and forcing up prices.
8. The Ugandan Government has recently introduced legislation to improve fire safety standards in schools following some tragic losses of life. New laws include the banning of bunk beds in which children sleep 3 high. This type of bed is currently in use in all boarding dormitories, rendering it necessary to build additional dormitories just to accommodate current numbers. The High School does have some additional dormitory space but this is not currently furnished.
9. Many businesses are in trouble due to the economic situation.
10. According to Hamlet, the next generation will be the first to have to face the future without adequate amounts of land. Their only hope is therefore through education.
11. Oil has been discovered within 45 minutes drive of Kirima, although the scale of the finds is not yet known. This development has already had up upwards effect on the cost of labour.
12. The next election is due in 2011 and the outcome could threaten the recent considerable period of stability.
13. Infant mortality rate estimated at 120 infant deaths before the age of five years per thousand births.
14. Prospects for the development of physical trade are significantly restricted by the Region's remoteness and distance from potential markets. Transport costs would make products uncompetitive and the time to market is a particular problem for perishable products.

In our view, the best options for attracting finance into the Region therefore seem to be through education and tourism, and possibly a combination of the two. There is also some logic to working at trying to produce locally alternatives to products that are currently brought in from outside, and thereby keeping money within the local community. There are great possibilities for attracting external finance into the area if the College could be upgraded to a University.

Information gathered about Primary School, High School and College

1. Kirima PPS has 380 pupils, over half of whom board, and 25 staff.
2. In Uganda the rough age groups for the different levels of education are Nursery 3-5 years, Primary 6-13 years, Secondary studying for O levels 14-17 years and Secondary studying for A levels 18-20 years.
3. Great Lakes high School has 101 pupils, all of whom are boarders, and 25 staff. There were intakes of 69 an S1 level and 36 at S2 level in January 2008. The maximum class size at High School level is 45, although Hamlet believes 50 is possible. Currently the teacher pupils ratio is inefficient because it has been necessary to recruit specialist teachers for a wide range of subjects. We were told that the school could take at least another full class next year without needing more classrooms or teachers. High prices and a lack of fee paying pupils has resulted in building work coming to a halt part way through the construction programme. As a consequence of this, the classrooms have no windows or doors, the library has virtually no books, there is no IT facility, no scientific equipment and no teachers' accommodation despite the fact that the school is in a remote area. When we arrived, the teachers had not been paid since April, Hamlet had just had to negotiate extended credit with the food suppliers and there were outstanding bills in respect of the building work. We put a rescue package in place to fund the school until the end of September with Hamlet and the Trustees agreeing to sell some land in order to finance the completion of the building work and to fund the school until the start of the next academic year in February 2009. Hamlet seems resigned to reducing the school to a one form per year school in the short term, rather than the original ambition of two steams. There is an urgent need to find sponsorship for approximately 150 students for 2009 onwards.
4. Great Lakes Regional College has 330 students and 30 staff. It is on the point of being upgraded to a Licenced Tertiary Institution which will be able to award its own diplomas. The next stage in its progression would be for it to gain degree awarding status. To achieve this degree awarding status, it would be necessary to have at least two staff with Masters degrees, improved library and IT facilities and four additional buildings.

After discussion with Hamlet, I (John Rutherford), have booked to visit Kirima again from 28th November to 5th December to help with the planning for next year's intake for Great Lakes High School, to spend time with the accountants and bursars and put in place a better system for providing information to sponsors.

Main conclusions

The quality of the work being done in Uganda and the financial support for the Primary school is very impressive but there is a desperate need for sponsorship of pupils for Great Lakes High School. There needs to be improvement in the information provided to keep the sponsors informed of the progress of the child they are sponsoring.

John Lewis
John Rutherford
July 2008

Project update May 2008

Highgate School did a sponsored charity walk to raise money for the building of Great Lakes High School, a secondary school that gives an opportunity for children from the four CHIFCOD schools to continue their education in a supportive environment. A cheque for Ł50,000 was handed to the Uganda team in the assembly of more than 1,000 children who raised the money.

Construction started in December on a brand new site and using a team of more than 100 people and four tippers, main facilities were in usable condition and on the 18 February 100 pioneer children walked up Highgate Road (named to honour Highgate School) to the new school located in Katete.

Construction work was interrupted by the political crisis in Kenya which hiked fuel prices in land locked Uganda but through perseverance the basic school has started on a strong footing as work continues to perfect the structures as funds become available.

Sincere appreciation goes to Mr Petit Adam the Headmaster, Mr. John Lewis, Ms Vicky Jauncy, the charity committee of Highgate School who most generously developed and supported the vision for Great Lakes High School. Special thanks to Revd Nigel Little who built a bridge between Highgate School and Friends of KPPS and who continues coordinating communication among the supporters of CHIFCOD.

A visit from a team from Highgate School is anticipated in July of 2008 and then hopefully a visit by the Headmaster for a grand opening of the school in 2009 is under discussion. These visits will give the Uganda community an opportunity to see face to face the people behind the gifts.

Project update February 2008

Construction work of buildings for the new Great Lakes High School started just before Christmas when the first part of the project funds arrived and we have been making good speed on completing the main building, a dining hall and kitchen a boys’ and a girls’ dormitories, a block with four classrooms and a laboratory as well as two residential units!

For the last week we have faced a major fuel crisis that has pushed the cost of fuel up by 500% from shillings 2,200 to up to 10,000 per litre. This is primarily because there has been a terrible dispute over the presidential elections in neighbouring Kenya leaving the country at the verge of civil war! All the fuel used in Uganda is driven from Mombassa through Kenya to Uganda. All roads are currently unsafe so no fuel at all is coming in!

We have decided to continue building because we are already recruiting children for the school due to open in six weeks so we have a very tight schedule, even then we cannot know how long the chaos in Kenya will go on for! Please pray that the top politicians in Kenya will put the critical needs of their people and their neighbours above their greed for power. They can end the crisis with a vote recount by the just sworn in president's government or by the run up who feels cheated stopping chaos and taking the matter to the courts of law (whose justice he does not believe in).

Pray that we will hit our target although unfortunately the buildings will cost more than hoped as 30% of all construction costs are for transportation of cement, sand, stones, bricks timber etc.

Many thanks for your support for this wonderful project. Please pray for the interviews for the positions of head teacher, deputy and 12 teachers due on the 16th of January 2008. Furniture and other things for the starting of the school are all being made on schedule!

4th January 2008

Highgate School Sponsored Walk

The entire Highgate School foundation, pre-prep, junior, senior pupils and staff, will be embarking on a sponsored walk on the last day of half term - Friday 19th October - to raise enough money to get the Great Lakes High School launched.

This follows on from the immense success of last year's walk which raised funds for a charity based in Seenigama, a small village on the south west coast of Sri Lanka which was devastated by the tsunami of 2004.

Work is well advanced on the first building at the new Secondary School

Many children in Uganda have to walk on average 6km a day to fetch 20kg of water for their family. The pupils will carry a weight to symbolise this water on their walk to have an idea of what Ugandan children do every day. The weight will be made up of 1.5 liter bottles of water (as well as 500 ml for drinking during the walk!) The amount of water will depend on the age of the student, from 1.5kg for the younger children up to 6kg for the sixth formers.

Highgate School fund raising for charity has always been highly successful and is enormously important to the charities they support. CHIFCOD would like to thank the school, walkers and sponsors in advance for their generosity which will make such a difference to the families in Uganda.