Friends of Kirima Parents
Primary School and Great
Lakes Regional College

Primary schools

The Kirima Parents Primary School started the whole enterprise and providing high-quality schools to younger children remains central to the success of all the CHIFCOD projects

In 1994, a group of parents set up the School for children in their rural district of south-western Uganda. The hard work and commitment of local families was not enough, on its own, to make this project the success it has been ... it also needed funds from overseas.

Children cannot learn unless their needs for food, water and health are also met. The sponsorship programme helps fund school lunches, a clean water scheme and a family health centre. This means that the entire family can benefit from the children being at school and reduces the pressure for them to work in the fields from the earliest possible age to help support the family.

The success of this scheme is dramatic and visitors from the UK comment on the enormous difference between areas with a sponsored school and villages that have to manage on their own.

It is easy to link your school, youth club or church to a primary school in rural Uganda. The Kirima club can provide the model to help get you started. And it only takes a handful of people to sponsor local children to start a scheme.

Each sponsor is allocated a child in a Ugandan village so they can see the difference that their donation of £100 per year is making.

Newsletters from the school can be published on this website or you can send them out to individual sponsors. Photographs and letters from the sponsored children give a real involvement in the difference the scheme is making to their lives.

The UK children gain a real understanding of the similarities and differences between themselves and children living in rural Africa.

If you would like to help start a partnership with a Uganda school, or if you would like to sponsor a child, just follow one of the links on the left.

Newsletter May 2008

Here's a news report from the Rev. Canon Dr. Hamlet Mbabazi (Founding Director) and Godfrey Arineitwe Kibingo (Headmaster of Kirima Parents Primary School).

STAFF NEWS: KPPS has a team of 13 teachers and 13 support staff who teach the children and ensure that the school is a safe, happy and maturing experience for the children entrusted to it.

INFRASTRUCTURE: The school has 3 dormitory blocks (2 for girls and one for boys that accommodate 180 children of both sexes. 8 classrooms from nursery 1&2 - P.7 The other nursery class is taught in the main hall as we don't have a free classroom that can accommodate them. These classrooms are not large enough. They are congested. It is hoped that the four new classrooms under construction will be completed soon to ease the congestion. A main hall which is used as both dining hall and chapel. For now, this is big enough, only that it lacks more furniture.

HEALTH AND SANITATION: The health programme which was funded by the Big Lottery Fund through Friends of KPPS left a strong legacy in this sector. Children have got full time access to clean water for drinking, washing their hands, bathing (for boarders) and cooking in their homes, as the gravity water extends to about 60 of the children's homes. The school has two pit latrine blocks that have ten stances and one flush toilet block of five stances. This gives us a total of 15 stances, which make a healthy ratio of one toilet for every 25 children. All these are in perfect condition. The School has a clinic operated by 2 full time nurses to give first aid and referral advice to children at school. The school community and trustees are very grateful to Friends of KPPS and to Mr. Peter Packham in particular, the health project consultant for this timely intervention. It is hoped that the application just launched to further improve health in the community will be successful.

FOOD: The meals are served on time and I would like to commend the sponsors of children for the funds that make it possible to buy sufficient quality foods like matoke, maize meal, beans, rice and occasionally meat and ground nuts. Left on their own, the parents' contributions could at best pay half the teaching staff, leaving children in near starvation condition. The catering department too deserves appreciation for the job well done. The boarders are promptly served three meals a day, i.e. breakfast at 6.30am, lunch at 12.30pm and supper at 6.30pm. All day scholars also get their lunch at school which is a big relief to them. It is increasingly difficult for parents to get food in the homes, as harvests have deteriorated over time. Costs of labour have gone up and pressure upon parents to sell off the meagre harvest for meeting obligations like healthcare is at an all time high. For many day children the meal they get at school is their primary source of nutrition. For many boarding pupils term time is more popular than holidays regarding food availability!

ACADEMIC PROGRESS: The school now has 400 children (nursery 1, nursery 2, P.1 - P.7). Teachers have tried to put in effort in teaching, evaluating and assessing the progress of the learners. For this reason, a reasonable number of pupils were able to get promoted to their next classes and few children whose achievement was found lacking have been advised to repeat and try again, as we believe that giving them another chance would help them achieve better results, as this determines the quality of school they go to for secondary education and ultimately determines whether they will complete their education successfully and have good chances of employment in a country where jobs are only available for a small number.

The Primary Leaving Examination (PLE) results for 2007 were very encouraging and KPPS ranks among the best 3 performing schools out of the 140 schools in Kanungu District. Credit goes to the Head Teacher, teachers, support staff, pupils and, of course, sponsors who make it possible financially for the school community to exist and teach effectively.

TRANSPORT: The school truck (Isuzu ECF Reg. No. UAD 518X) is in a perfect running condition. This has helped us carry out duties effectively. Collecting firewood, taking pupils for study tours, collecting food and even taking sick children to health units are done by the truck. I commend its driver, Mr. Noah Hassan for maintaining it.

FENCING THE SCHOOL: Some progress has been made. The school contracted one person to put in place a "live" fence using "mayonza plants" which are now growing. The challenge is raising money for erecting a gate at the main entrance so that the school can have privacy. We shall also be able to solve the problem of trespassing which is a clear problem to the school at the moment.

HEADMASTER GODFREY'S VISIT TO HULL: Godfrey got an opportunity to Hull, where Revd Nigel Little is now based, where he visited several places. He opened a link with Hull Collegiate School, a secondary school of 800 students. Through this visit contacts were established through which volunteer teachers and child sponsors have signed up.

OTHER ACHIEVEMENTS AT KPPS: A number of achievements have been registered but allow me to highlight the following among others:

• KPPS school is now connected to the national electricity grid and this has facilitated teaching programmes. The pupils can now also read on their own in the evening.
• The acquisition of another plot near the James Little boys' dormitory.
• We have also maintained our public relations in the community which I think is a vital component in managing a school.
• The fence is half way built. I am appealing for support so that it can fully be completed.
• A double storied block that is to have four new classrooms is underway and support is needed to raise funds for is completion as construction costs have more than doubled during the Kenya crisis but have not shrunk back to normal.

STAFF DEVELOPMENT: The staff have been praying for this programme so that it can be extended to include their own development. In one of the staff meetings, it was resolved that the headmaster should table this to the board for implementation/consideration. They are mainly requesting for:

• Loans for motorbikes
• Building loans for personal homes
• Further education loans

SUPPORT IS NEEDED FOR THE FOLLOWING:

• Overwhelming numbers in small classrooms/congestions
• Lack of sufficient furniture in the dining hall
• Limited dormitory facilities
• Financial stability to facilitate salaries, food costs, fuel and other operation costs.
• The school is still lagging behind the computer age. There is need to computerise systems and now that we are having stable electricity and new links coming up we need to think about internet installation for the school so that we can be in constant contact with our donors.

Newsletter November 2007

The Rev’d Jonathan Trigg (Trustee) visited the schools and college a few weeks ago and we shall be getting a report from him soon. He said KPPS is in good heart and being run very well, the same going for the college, though the introduction of degree level courses is going to take rather longer than Rev’d Hamlet Mbabazi had hoped. He also visited the site of the projected High School.

The Rev’d Hamlet Mbabazi and his wife, Kellen, together with the Head Teacher of KPPS (Godfrey Kibingo) will be visiting the U.K.shortly. Their tours will take in a number of schools. Their plans, as at 1st November, are as follows:

• Arrive in U.K. 7th November. Hamlet and Kellen will then go to Germany for one week.
• Godfrey - 9th, 10th, 11th Bearsted; 16th Guildford; 17th Cambridge; 19,20,21st in Hull.
• 13th Nov-15th Nov: Highgate : St. Michael’s School and Highgate School. There is a 7pm supper on 13th with St. Michael’s School Association in Highgate. On 15th a 5pm meeting and supper with the team and other interested parties (that means you if you’ve been there or you are a group organiser).
• Sunday 25th November: St. Michael’s Church a.m.
• Hamlet, Kellen and Godfrey then go on to Hull for 19-21st Nov (Rev’d Nigel Little). They return to Uganda 26th November.

If you wish to send a letter/photos to your sponsored child please send these to me by Wednesday 14th November (latest) (or hand them to Karen Rogers at St. Michael’s, Highgate), so that Kellen can take them back to Uganda with her.

Newsletter September 2007

The Reverend Jonathan Trigg (Trustee) is going to Uganda on 1st October for one week to visit the Primary School, the new Secondary School called Great Lakes High School and Great Lakes Community College. If you wish to write a letter to your sponsored child please send this to Jonathan Trigg, 10 The Grove, Highgate, London N6 6LB. Please don’t send gifts this time though as Jonathan will have a very heavy suitcase already!

For those of you interested in exact locations: Kirima Primary School, the College, the Health Programme Office, the Youth Credit Union Offices and the Reverend Hamlet Mbabasi’s home are in Kanungu at the heart of Kinkiizi County, Kanungu District and the new High School is 10 miles north. There is now a total of about 120 acres of land of which about 15 is occupied by the school and project buildings. The rest is located in about six places generally near Kirima school and the college.

Kirima Primary School has eight classrooms which are enough in number of rooms but they are too small for current numbers and now hold up to 70 children in some classes. They need to build four new classrooms over a period of time and they need £5000 for each classroom. As far as the new High School is concerned the school will be for children who have completed primary school at Kirima, Nyamirama and Nyakbungo, about 80 annually, then perhaps another 20-40 from other primary schools who have been given a good academic foundation. This will be a double stream school. By the time the school is fully built in five years time with facilities for 600-700 students in four years of O level and 2 years of A levels they will have built 12 buildings (it takes three months to build a new building). Each building will cost £10,000.

The Rev’d Hamlet Mbabazi will be coming to England again in November and it is hoped that the Head Teacher from Kirima School is able to accompany him if he can get a visa of course. We are hoping that he will be bring with him more letters and photos. Some sponsors will be receiving letters and photos with this Newsletter. And now the fundraising begins for the High School!

Dormitary at Kirima School

Julia Challender Uganda Diary

Julia, recently retired as head of Highagate School pre-prep department, is spending a year teaching at the Kirima schools. Click here to read her fascinating blog. Here is a brief extract...

“I have also spent some time in the Nursery this week. Nursery 1, the three and four-year olds, occupy a tiny room which is furnished with the same pew-like bench-and-shelf units, each seating five or six children - often more - used in the other classes. Seated in rows, the fifteen little ones sit and chant, sing, count and recite, sometimes making a circle at the front for some practical activities, for most of the morning.

I watch a number lesson where they carefully count the stones that comprise their number apparatus : their only equipment other than what they find outside is a pile of slates which they use for drawing and scribbling. They have not a single item of play apparatus, not a book, not a puzzle nor even a few bricks.

Yet their lovely teacher Diana keeps them happily occupied with a medley of songs and action rhymes - they know more English nursery songs than I knew existed, as well as many in Ruchiga - and a succession of other little activities and lessons. She is a remarkable teacher; patient, kind, firm, and endlessly cheerful and energetic. She has an air of serenity about her and even in such an impoverished environment always manages to look wonderfully elegant, bringing a touch of glamour to the bare Nursery classroom in her dusty Chanel suit which has doubtless made its way to Kanungu from some privileged wardrobe across the ocean.

Robert, the other teacher who works in the Nursery, is another fascinating character. Tall, gentle and the oldest member of staff here by some distance, he is a passionate devotee of Nursery education, believing, as I do, that it underpins the whole of a child's future learning; he loves working with the little ones. He tells me one breaktime that his parents didn't send him to school, and so, desperate to be educated, at the age of fourteen he enrolled himself at his local school in Primary 1 (Year One) with the six-year olds and worked his way through the system, always eight years older than the others in his class, finally taking his 'A' levels when he was twenty-seven. He then trained for the Church then finally went into teaching as - he admits - a very mature student indeed.

Between them, these two teachers create a wonderfully happy, nurturing atmosphere in the Nursery - but, oh, how much more they could do if they had some toys and play equipment!”

Can you remember your first ever taste of pizza?

Godfrey Arinatwe can. Godfrey had his first ever pizza at 2pm on Wednesday 14th November at a Pizza Hut in town and the verdict was unforgettable "Wow!" Godfrey is the Headmaster of Kirima Primary School, a remarkable school that lies within an hour’s journey of the Birindi Impenetrable Forest, home of ‘Gorillas in the Mist’ in South Western Uganda near the borders with both Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. For two weeks Godfrey travelling for the first time outside Uganda, visited local schools, sharing ideas, teaching in class, leading assemblies and building friendships that will benefit children both here and in Kirima.

Imagine a school where the first question at the parents and teachers meeting is “How can we improve our children’s chances of survival?” Imagine living somewhere so different that your school is your only source of clean water, nitrous food, electricity, health care (for each pupil and their families), secure accommodation and hope for a better future - Kirima is just that school and it is making a huge impact in the lives of thousands.

Kirima Primary School was founded in 1997 where teaching initially took place under a large tree during the mornings. Kirima has now 357 pupils, 200 boarding, in simple but purpose built facilities and is one of the top 5 primary schools in Uganda. The success of the school has led to the founding of 3 other primary schools, a youth project and a further education college. In addition Kirima provides safe drinking water to over 10,000 people, cooked food to 1,100 children and reliable health services for over a 1,000 families (the nearest hospital is 2 days walk away). With the help of partner schools in the U.K. and further a field, Kirima will soon build “Great Lakes High School” with over 200 Ugandan children signed up to start the first ever secondary education in February 2008.

"£15 a month provides secondary schooling, accommodation and two meals a day for a Ugandan child who would otherwise not have an education" says Jonathan Trigg, chairman of “Friends of Kirima” who visited Uganda earlier this year. "Partnership with schools and individuals who sponsor children are key to the success of education in rural Uganda and we pray that as we build friendships, we will all learn something of the difference we can make and have a rewarding, fun time ourselves."

"I have really enjoyed my visit to U.K.," Godfrey says, "You are privileged to live in a place where the people are so welcoming and supportive; where the environment is so clean, open and yet with so many facilities and blessings. It really is an inviting place. We welcome our growing friendship with the area and I hope we can welcome people from the U.K. to Kirima before very long."

Christmas time is full of festivities (even if there won’t be any pizza) not only because Godfrey is expecting a second child two days before the big day itself but this year Kirima celebrates their new friends in the U.K. too. But there’s more to Christmas at Kirima than that; it’s Godfrey’s Christian faith that motivates that motivates him to improve the community which he lives in as he serves those around him. This was particularly evident when one school girl asked what Godfrey’s surname meant, "It is translated as Emmanuel, meaning: God with us," - Emmanuel is the title given to Jesus 2,000 years ago and describes both the character and mission of the original Christmas baby. Kirima will be celebrating a love that gives, sacrifices and brings people all across the world together.

Kirima Club @ St Michaels School

Close links between St Michaels Primary School in North London and Kirima Parents Primary School in Uganda have been established for many years. Families at St Michaels sponsor many children at Kirima and the schools have been the focus for many of the links between Highgate and Kinkiizi.

Now a club has been set up at St Michaels School to create closer links between the children at the two schools and to help grow an understanding of the similarities and differences between life in such contrasting places.

Logo designed by St Michael’s pupils for Kirima Schools in Uganda

Newsletter November 2006

The Rev. Can. Dr. Hamlet Mbabazi came to London for a few days in October. He was very excited about his new project which he has set up in Uganda - The Uganda Rural enterprise Cooperative Union. He told us that The Great Lakes Regional college model in Kanungu had won a grant of $330,000 from the Rotary Foundation for creating 200 loans a year for student entrepreneurship development and this was a great inspiration. It has demonstrated that the youth can be empowered to support themselves in college with a loan of $500. This scheme works with MPs and donor organisations.

Firstly, he thanked the sponsors for the growth of Kirima and that it is the best school in the community with arrangements for supporting poor children, paying good teachers, feeding children, having arrangements for health care and for having safe buildings.

Secondly, Great Lakes College which is now in its third year has got close to 300 students who, without it, would be on the streets without an educational future.

As Kirima School has grown in quality he said that they have experienced a lot of congestion in both the classes which have got at least twice the number of children that they can comfortably handle, as well as dormitories. They need to build new classrooms that are bigger and then knock down the walls between some of the existing ones to make them more spacious for the lower classes while for P 5-7 they would like to introduce a double stream for better student/teacher ratios.

While all the children who complete P7 are consistently passing with flying colours, many of them are ending up in schools which do not offer high quality education and in this way children who would be heading for leadership if they got good education on high school level are ending up with ordinary performance or outright drop out for financial reasons. Now we have a college in place which gives promise of university education for all our children but we need a secondary school so that the quality of education and conduct can remain consistently high.

The Great Lakes College has so far been affiliated to a university in Kampala for accreditation purposes but the cost of this is really exploitative as it takes some 15% of the colleges annual revenue. This year we are hoping to host an inspection committee of government that will be assessing the suitability of the college for self accreditation. There is an urgent need for specific books in the library that are required in the areas of business, tourism, education and agriculture.

The Reverend Nigel Little (St. Michael’s Church) is now in Uganda with Hamlet for a short time and he will be reporting back to us. Thanks to donations - we have £4000 to build a new kitchen and this will be sent over to the school very shortly.