Help Keep 15 Aspiring Ugandan Girls in School

Uganda's lockdown, with no school in session, has continued longer than we had hoped. As of today, schools are still closed. The government still prohibits gatherings larger than 5 people. Students have received study materials in June and are supposed to be studying at home.

In light of these circumstances, our Uganda staff requested special permission from the district to conduct special occasional meetings with the girls in our parish (like a county). We began meeting with them in mid-July to stress the continued importance of school and studying while at home, to encourage them to focus on their goals, and to receive feedback from them on the issues they face at home during the lockdown.

Fifty--eight girls attended the first meeting. We've included a photo of that meeting in this report. The biggest issue they reported was being overworked at home doing farming as well as caring for younger siblings. In two cases, the mother had permanently left the home. The girls were excited about the meeting and all agreed the meetings should continue.

Our staff met the next week with the mothers to provide encouragement, and give feedback from the girls meeting. Staff also met with district education officials to brief them on the status of our girls and encourage the district to promote similar meetings throughout the district.

We are continuing to monitor the situation and have also scheduled our primary school's teachers to meet with 6th grade students individually at their homes to help with the students' home learning, answer questions etc.

We believe our girls are doing the best possible under the circumstances. In the next month, we will discuss more with district education officials to see if we can help with girls' meetings at other nearby schools in our district.

We thank you for your continued support of keeping girls motivated about their schooling and for giving us the means to assist especially those girls who do not yet have sponsors.

We would very much appreciate if you can share about this project with your friends, family and co-workers who feel strongly about girls' education.

Links:

• Our web site
• See our work in photos

i was in Uganda from mid-February to mid-March and want to update you about the status of our older girls in school, the very girls this project is helping to support!  The good news is the Uganda school year got off to a good start in February.  I, along with two other volunteers visited many of the secondary students at the schools where they board.  I've included a photo of one visit at the very end of February.  This gave us the opportunity to talk with the girls one on one to see how they liked school as well as to provide encouragement to the girls.

Four days after I  flew back to the U.S.,.Uganda's president sent all students home from school for 30 days as well as undertook other measures, all aimed at stopping the coronavirus from spreading within Uganda.  As of April 8th, there are 53 reported coronaivrus cases in Uganda with zero deaths reported. We hope that containment efforts continue to be successful.

According to Uganda school officials, they currently expect the school year to progress with students returning to school at some point and making up for missed school days by shortening or eliminating the two three-week term breaks and/or extending the school year into December.  We are operating under this understanding that students are just home for an earlier break than normal but will go back in May (or maybe June) depending on what happens.

In the meantime, we are helping the northern Agwata community where many of our students live. The clinic is making preparations to better withstand any health issues the community might face during the upcoming rainy season (May and June). So whether it might be increased cases of malaria, pneumonia or coronavirus, we are helping the community's clinic workers prepare to the extent we have funds available for this. This in turn will better support our students who are home on break and who depend on the local clinic for their health care.

We appreciate your continued support of keeping older secondary (7th to 12th grade) girls in school until we locate additional sponsorship and scholarship supporters for them. We also appreciate your continued support during this time as the whole world waits for the coronavirus crisis to pass so that we can return to a new normal. And especially importantly, so that our girls can return to school!

Links:

• Our web site
• See our work in photos