Help build a new
High School for the
people of Kanungu

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.

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.

Project update

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!

Building work in December 2007

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