A broken leg. That’s my excuse for not writing a blog post for so long. I’ve been too busy feeling sorry for myself! So much has happened in 2019, I’m either going to have to write some kind of thesis style essay, or write several blogs over the coming weeks and months. I’m going to opt for the latter.
Where to begin? Well, I’ve spent some time going through the blog posts that I’ve written most recently, and I’ve realised that I haven’t actually shared an update on the secondary school for a while. So i’m going to start there.
(A Crested Crane, the national bird of Uganda, perched on top of the goalposts at the school).
The idea of supporting our partners to build the first ever secondary school in Kihembe was conceived in 2016 and to this day, we have supported the development of the school in many ways, as you can read in a previous blog about this topic. Further to the achievements listed in the aforementioned blog, we have provided funding to build a second classroom block, we have finished the construction of a kitchen block and we have provided funding to plant over one thousand coffee trees.
The school is well into its third year, and whilst it still has its challenges, it’s progressing incredibly well. There are so many students attending the school and it looks like we’re already going to have to fundraise for expansion plans! In fact, one of the first projects that we hope to undertake in 2020 is to provide funding to the Ugandan team to build a science lab at the school site. This is a government requirement and is an urgent requirement to allow the students to practice before their examinations.
(As always, during our April visit, we were warmly welcomed by the students who performed traditional Bakiga dances.)
We have started fundraising for this and you can see Monica say thank you to some of our fundraisers by watching the following short video. (You can see the new building behind Monica at the top of the hill). Although not mentioned in the video, I’d also like to say a special thank you to Anthony Wilcock, whose 30 @ 30 challenge raised over £1,000 to support the secondary school. An incredible achievement Anthony, many congratulations!
You will be able to read more about the secondary school in upcoming blogs. Just know that it’s going from strength to strength and we’re so proud of what we’ve achieved in a relatively short space of time. I’d like to thank everyone involved for helping the secondary school to grow and develop and we’re excited for our future involvement with the school.
In the coming weeks, I’m going to be writing about the time I spent in Uganda with some students from a local sixth form, and I will share their perceptions of their time in Uganda. I’ll also be revealing some exciting news about developments at Kishunju Primary School, as well as other little bits and pieces!
It’s nice to be back writing. I hope you’ve enjoyed this short update and keep your eyes peeled for the next post in the coming weeks.
Ross x
@ZuriProject
Welcome to The Zuri Project. 