KIRIMA Dinner

The Highate community and St Michael’s School Association (SMSA) held a brilliant fundraising dinner in November. It raised over £6,000 which will enable the 6 new classrooms to be finished, furnished and in use by the start of the school year in Jan 2012. It will also contribute to the new kitchen needed, due to the poor state of repair and leaking roof of the present kitchen.

A big thank you to everybody who helped and especially to Highgate School for their hospitality, Highgate Hillbillies Band and special guest star Clive Anderson.

Urgent Classroom Appeal

Dear Supporter,

Justus and Precious are responding to the latest news about Kirima Parents Primary School in Uganda. The whole of the community is to greatly benefit from the construction of a new, modern road linking Kirima with Kabale in the south and reducing journey times to the capital, Kampala from 10 to approximately 7 hours.

However the road has one serious downside for Kirima school - the new road will require the demolition of our current classrooms, hall and our vital boys' dormitory. The replacing of the current dirt track with a tarmac road requires a verge/hardshoulder and a protective barrier fence to keep the children safe. There is just not enough room on the current site. Hence Kirima School as we know it, as we have built it, as we have come to love it needs to change.

The Ugandan Ministry of Transport will compensate the school for the loss of land and buildings but with the Kirima site now greatly reduced double storey buildings will be needed and the government money just won't go that far. We need six new classrooms, a dormitory for the boys and a new assembly/exam hall. Rebuilding has already started so that we can ensure the future education of the children but we will need to raise £150,000 to complete the work. Raising this considerable sum is indeed a challenge but provides the opportunity to construct classrooms and dormitories that will ensure education for future generations.

Together the Trustees of Kirima School both in Uganda and here in the UK have been assessing options for the future. We asked some tough questions: is Kirima still needed, can we justify the large construction cost to donors, would a new site be cheaper? We also assessed if there was a benefit to specialising for day pupils only or if we should insist on provision for boarding pupils. We asked if we should oppose the new road. Our research has reaffirmed the vital nature of our work done at the present school, to which you already contribute. The school has some of the best results regionally and nationally, the classroom sizes are manageable and the staff are both committed and dedicated to the wellbeing of the children. We have also decided that to benefit the maximum range of pupils Kirima will remain a mixed school for boys and girls, day pupils and boarders.

As our flagship school Kirima is vital to our wider work of community transformation and sustainable rural development that changes lives and gives new hope to thousands of children and their families. If we are to ensure that there is no disruption to the education of children we will need to build the new facilities before the old ones are demolished. If we are to do this we need promises of donations by the 31st of March 2011.

Please would you give as generously as possible so that we can reach our target of £150,000? Just click the donate button on the left to make a credit card donation.

Thank you for your support.

Yours sincerely

Nigel Little
Director, Kirima Ltd

Santas’ on the Run

Volunteers dress up as Santa to raise £650 for the VU schools. Not bad for a days fun! Volunteers past and future had one last mince pie tightened their belts adjusted their beards and took to the streets and parks of oxford to run a MASSIVE 4 miles to raise money for the Volunteer Uganda schools. Money will be spent on refurbishment, books and sports equipment.

Well Done Santas!

What a change in 7 years!

We first visited Kirima Parents Primary School in Uganda on the way to Bwindi Impenetrable Forest (to track mountain gorillas) in February 2003. It was school holiday time, so there were very few staff or children about, but we received a very warm welcome, lunch and a tour of the school. There were very few buildings, as I recall, just a few basic classrooms, with several more under construction, and an office.

Move on 7 1/2 years to 13 October 2010, and the school site was unrecognisable! Children and staff were everywhere, lots and lots of buildings and a school lorry. There had been a total transformation. The area is quite remote and only reached by atrocious roads.

We made our way to Hamlet Mbabazi’s house where we were met by him and his wife Kellen. We had met them in 2003 in Kampala and of course have met him here in Highgate. The primary school, Great Lakes Secondary School and Great Lakes Regional College were his vision, and through much hard work he has brought them into being.

He is a charismatic and inspirational man and last time he persuaded us that we really did want to provide the primary school with a playing field! Since then he has been inviting us to return so that the said playing field could be officially opened, and on 13 October this year it finally was.

The piece of land is quite large and fairly flat, but at this time, the time of the short rains, rather boggy in one or two places! However, in spite of this, a grand football match had been arranged, but first a ribbon tied between the posts of the football goal had to be cut. This was duly done by David who was then given a ball made of banana fibres( the sort of home-made football that most children in Uganda play with) as a keepsake, by the Captain of Football. We were then treated to a welcome song with dancing and drumming (all very emotional and I had to try very hard to prevent the tears rolling down my face) and finally the match started, the boys negotiating the boggy patches heroically, as most were playing barefoot.

It was probably the shortest match in history as the sky had become very black and there was a farewell song to be sung! There was just time for this to happen before the heavens opened, sending children and their teachers back to their classrooms and us to a splendid lunch of local fare (goat stew, spicy chicken, rice and matoke) in the Lion King Garden, a reception area for the college.

After lunch we visited the Great Lakes Secondary School, a 15 minute drive from the primary school. The building has been funded largely by Highgate School, with the foundation stone being laid on 4 October 2007 by Jonathan Trigg. To reach the school we turned off the main road into the aptly named “Highgate Road”. It is a truly beautiful site and well laid out with fields of coffee growing in front. Hamlet's idea is to make the young people of 16 and upwards self-funding in the future by growing and selling such crops. To my mind this is an inspired idea, as international aid may not always be forthcoming and having brought these schools and the college into being, it would be a great pity if, in the future, they were to fail for lack of funds.

We said our farewells and drove back to our lodge near Bwindi, truly moved and inspired by all that we had seen.

David and Valerie Causer

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

Kirima Primary School

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.

Visit February 2010

News from our recent trustee visit:

• There are around 350 children at the school who all seem very happy and enthusiastic
• We held an official opening of the new classroom and office block which is now completed and in full use
• The books we sent out last summer are in use
• The flat ground created by the landscaping now has some grass on it and is being used as a play area for the children.
• I delivered letters from Carr Lane School, Willerby and received replies to deliver to Carr Lane School on my return.

New classrooms opened

A two-story block providing four new classrooms has now been opened. Many thanks to those who contributed to building this important new development at the school.

Julia Challender visit

Julia Challender returned recently from two terms of teaching in CHIFCOD schools in Uganda. Having recently retired as head of the Pre-Prep at Highgate School in North London, she developed an interest in CHIFCOD's work when the school held a sponsored walk to raise money to build Great Lakes High School which opened in 2008.

"It was a fantastic opportunity for me to use my teaching skills in a completely different setting - and to experience life in a community in rural Uganda. I was welcomed very warmly and the village people accepted me into their midst with such friendliness and warmth. I visited all the CHIFCOD schools at various points during my stay (from September 2008 to April 2009) but worked principally at Kirima Primary School, Great Lakes High School and Great Lakes College, dividing my week between the three schools. As a primary -trained teacher I had expected to find teaching the younger children the easiest but there was a lot to adjust to: the three to six year olds spoke mostly Rukiiga, their indigenous language, so communication was difficult, to say the least! Class sizes were enormous, between forty and seventy, and classroom resources minimal. I had only my piece of chalk and the blackboard to help me with the six one-hour lessons I had to teach each day. There were virtually no textbooks - usually just one in each subject for the teacher to use as a resource book. To my amazement, children learned to read and write in English with remarkable speed - and without using any books at all. Instead, they learned by rote, in very much the same way that children were taught here in England a century ago. The children are extremely diligent and take their studying very seriously: they know that a good education may help them to move out of the cycle of poverty in which they will otherwise be trapped so they don't waste a minute of the day.

The poverty of the community, where over 90% are subsistence farmers with virtually no income, made a huge impact on me. Children lead a very hard life: they have to fetch water, carrying between ten and twenty litres of water on their heads several times a day. They gather firewood, clean, do laundry, graze the animals and work in the fields. Many are malnourished and they are vulnerable to many diseases. Life expectancy is still below fifty in Uganda and burials are, sadly, a regular part of the weekly calendar.

In this challenging context CHIFCOD does a marvellous job. The schools achieve high educational standards and care not only for the children's health and welfare but are committed to supporting their families and the community too. I was struck by how little the parents can afford to contribute towards their children's educational costs; the nee d for more sponsors is therefore very urgent , and indeed, the need for substantial funding both to supply materials and resources in the schools and to meet the running costs of the schools themselves. To those of you who already sponsor children and support CHIFCOD's work I can only pass on to you the gratitude of the families who benefit from that support: it is of incalculable value and importance to them.

I returned to England humbled by the contrast between life in Uganda and my comfortable existence here. The sheer variety and quality of the food we eat; our health service, which, much as we malign it, seems almost miraculous after seeing poverty-stricken people having to sell their livestock or land to pay for essential medical treatment - or simply opting for the cheaper option, to die. Our water and sanitation services - taps not only in every house but in several rooms of every house; rubbish collected from our houses instead of having to be either burned or buried by hand; our amazing postal service; unemployment and sickness benefit. The saddest thing I heard - oft repeated - was that pension schemes were just not worth paying into in Uganda because the chances of living long enough to draw one are simply too low to make it worthwhile.

I would like to thank everyone who supported me during my visit, both here and in Uganda. Many people who followed my 'blog' gave me huge encouragement through their interest and supported the appeals I launched so generously. I was able to supply five hundred mosquito nets and dozens of text books following my "Net-Book" appeal at Christmas. I am now devoting myself to raising money to support the older pupils at the High School, many of whom are orphans and in desperate need of help. If any of you would like to make a donation and thereby become a Friend of Great Lakes High School, any contribution would be hugely welcome. £20 will pay for a mattress and a blanket for a school child, or any other amount will go into the Orphans' Fund, to give free places and financial support to the most needy children. Please, if you are not already a sponsor, think about becoming one: £15 a month will transform a child's educational opportunities and thereby their whole future.

I would be very happy to come and talk in schools or to other organisations about my experiences and CHIFCOD's work: please contact me either by home or email: juliachallender@gmail.com; 01843 864480.

New: May 2009

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.