Education Uganda Project #42553

Help vulnerable children go to SAMaritan Schools!

by Stichting Kinderhulp Afrika

Project Report | Nov 28, 2022
SAM's World

By Jill van Leeuwen | Project Leader

SAM’s WORLD

SAM is a very special place where young children can learn, play and interact with other children of their own age in a safe, relaxed, modern and well equipped building. It is one of the best kindergarten facilities in the Namugongo neighbourhood and caters for the youngest age group on our campus, the 0 to 6 year olds.

SAM’s Place on the campus.

Although built in 2018 as a small home for babies, the facilities are ideally suited for it as the Samaritan Day Care and Kindergarten, SAM for short. SAM had only been open a few months when the Covid-19 pandemic hit and unfortunately caused its closure for nearly 1 ½ years.

Since the education system restarted in Uganda our organisation realised that there is an increased need, and demand, for pre-school facilities. SAM has therefore concentrated its efforts during this last school year into providing more places for 3-6 year olds. In total 70 children have attended SAM in the school year, 6 of which have been fully sponsored by our charity.

SAM also acts as a feeder for our Samaritan Primary School (SPS), which has 7 classes P1-P7, for 6-12 year olds. 418 pupils attend SPS, 92 of whom are sponsored. SPS in turn feeds the Namugongo Secondary and Vocational School (NSVS), which provides high quality secondary and vocational education for 610 young people, with 92 receiving sponsorship. In addition there are a number of students who have gone on from NSVS, with our sponsorship, to Higher Educational Schools, Polytechnics and Universities.

SAM, SPS and NSVS are all partly self-supporting, generating part of their income from pupils and students whose families can afford to pay. This allows our charity, together with our generous donors, to support and sponsor children and young people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford any education.

SAM’s Place within the organisation – Kinderhulp-Afrika

Kinderhulp Afrika (KHA) is a Christian charity that looks after some of the most vulnerable children in Uganda, a country where the AIDs crisis created huge numbers of orphans. Since 1987 we have been providing these children with education, accommodation, spiritual and medical care. Our aim is to see them grow up to become healthy, responsible individuals who can meet their own needs in every aspect of their lives and contribute to Ugandan society.

The charity KHA owns the Namugongo campus, its buildings and other facilities, including a medical clinic serving the local area. The schools and clinic therefore benefit greatly, as they pay only a nominal fee for the site facilities and utilities.

All children need care, love and attention, especially when there are no parents around to give this. Our charity has 5 key core values, which underpin the basis of all our work, and we strive to centre everything we do around them.

We are Compassionate to the children and do everything we can to help them.

Maintaining the local culture is so important for the development of the children. We provide education in accordance with local standards. The executive officers and staff on the campus, the teachers, managers and other professionals that we employ are all local Ugandans. In the holiday period, the pupils go back to their guardians or families, wherever in the country, to keep those local ties.
Self-Reliance is our final goal for the individual child, as well as for the executive organisation in Uganda. We encourage local Ugandan fundraising and entrepreneurship, in order to reduce the dependency on funding from abroad.
We are Maximally Involved with, and fully dedicated to, the care of children in Uganda. Our commitment can truly make the difference in the life of a child!
The basis and the integrity of our work lies in our Christian Identity.

Our slogan is “FROM HELPLESS TO HOPEFUL, GIVE A CHILD A CHANCE!”

Our methods of fundraising include sponsorship of orphans, general donations, distribution of newsletters, social media information, and specific campaigns at schools or in businesses. We submit applications for project based activities to various trust funds and we crowd- fund.

SAM’s Place on GlobalGiving

Our charity has been active on the GlobalGiving (GG) platform since 2015 and are delighted that we have received so much support through them. To date we have raised more than £57,000 ( €65.500) for our various projects and several ‘micro-projects ‘.

We write regular reports about SAM and the micro-projects, all of which are posted on the GlobalGiving platform, and we participate in their various fundraising campaigns and activities.

GG, quite rightly, performs rigorous due diligence on every organisation in the GG community in order to ensure they are performing charitable work in a transparent and accountable manner, and that they meet requirements for registration with their local government. We welcome this oversight and cooperate with all the customised vetting for corporate giving programs and international grant making that GG provides to 175+ countries.

Giving Tuesday 29^th November 2022.

As many of you know, this is a yearly international day for charitable giving that follows Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

This year GG is offering a $1,200,000 Incentive Fund that will be distributed to participants proportionally based on final fundraising totals. Therefore the more funds our organisation can raise during the 24 hour campaign the more ‘prize’ money we will earn!

This year on Giving Tuesday we would like to raise funds to buy £13 (€15) Christmas hamper presents for our children and £26 (€30) presents for our wonderful staff. We would be so grateful if you could help us do this and make this years GG Giving Tuesday a great success! You can donate to SAM via this link:

https://www.globalgiving.org/42553

You can donate in $, £ or €!

‘Giving Tuesday’ lasts a full 24 hours and starts at:

midnight ET in the USA, 5 am GMT in the UK and 6 am CET in Europe.

Climate friendly and Coronavirus proof Christmas Presents!

Look no further! Sending a GG Gift Card and asking the receiver to support SAM is an environmentally sustainable and long-lasting gift… plus it’s easy!

Just click this link: https://www.globalgiving.org/gifts/ to buy and send your cards digitally. The recipient can then choose which project to support, so it’s very important that you kindly ask them to donate their card to SAM! www.globalgiving.org/42553

Every donation is welcome! Kinderhulp Afrika runs solely on donations and we are grateful for all the support we receive.

Thank you!

Thank you for your support and continued interest during this very difficult and uncertain 2022. If you can’t give now, we completely understand, and would be grateful if you can help us by sharing the link and telling your friends about the work we are doing and all that we are achieving in Uganda.

Please visit our website for more information and regular updates: https://www.kinderhulp-afrika.nl/en/

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the office via the website or myself personally, jill@kinderhulp-afrika.nl, I would love to hear from you.

I would like to take this opportunity on behalf of all the staff at SAM, the Children’s Welfare Mission and Kinderhulp Afrika to wish to and your family a Very Happy Christmas and Best Wishes for a healthier, happier, and safer 2023!

For all of us, “FROM HELPLESS TO HOPEFUL”!

Class room SAM

Laughter is the best medicine!

Happy Christmas from SAM

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Sep 27, 2022
A typical Day at SAM through the eyes of 2 Dutch students

By Jill van Leeuwen | Project Leader

Ready for a new school day, don't we look pretty!

The third term has just started at Samaritan Day Care & Kindergarten (SAM). 68 children were greeted not only by their teachers but also by two young enthusiastic Social Work students from a Dutch University.

There are currently 19 children in the baby class, 25 in the middle class and 25 in the top class. Of these children 5 are fully sponsored by the Kinderhulp Afrika (KHA) sponsor programme and 14 are staff members children benefitting from a subsidised place. The remaining children are paying pupils from the neighbourhood. Part of the vision of KHA is to make the campus and schools available to the local community so that they too can benefit from the campus’s facilities and knowhow at a very competitive and affordable price.

A Day in the Life of SAM

Hello from SAM! Amber and Diana are volunteers who are staying on our campus for three months and are spending some of their time helping at SAM. They are keen to share their experiences and enthusiasm -so over to them for their words and their description of a day in the life of SAM….

“A day at the SAM Kindergarten is hectic and great fun! We have to make sure we’ve had a good night’s sleep and are up early, as the day starts at 8:00am

8:00 am - Daily circle.

Singing and dancing - in a circle in the garden with all the teachers and other volunteers, and all of children. Keeping up with energetic 3- to 8-year-olds is hard work first thing in the morning!

8:30 am - Class work .

Everyone to go indoors and the children divide up into their three groups for learning. The youngest children are in the toddler group, there is a group for the middle children and top group for the older children. In the toddler class the focus is on learning words, counting and drawing, and this always includes a lot of play in the playroom that is full of educational toys. The two older groups use more formal teaching materials to help them develop writing skills, read books, and learn basic maths.

10:30 am – breakfast break.

Not a minute too soon after all that sitting still and learning! The children all wash their hands outside at the tap and then go to the common room where they sit on large rugs on the floor. There is a short prayer before everyone enjoys a cup of tea, chapati and a fried egg.

Once breakfast is finished, play time begins. All three groups head for the playroom at the same time! The playroom is filled with excited children and pandemonium as the children are allowed to let of steam and their excess energy.

Meantime the teachers take their well-earned break .

11.15am – class work.

Order and quiet follows when the children go back to their groups and lessons continue until lunch. The children have to try to concentrate again on their lessons. Something that isn’t always easy for such young children with short concentration spans.

1:00 pm - lunchtime.

There is a well equipped kitchen at SAM where nourishing hot meals are specially prepared for the needs of the children. They all get a hot meal and a drink. The children eat a variety of foods like rice, beans, samosa, and local African dishes. Unless the Ugandan rainy season weather prevents outside activities, everyone goes out again after lunch, and before afternoon lessons start for the two older groups of children.

2:00 pm – class work middle and top group.

When the two oldest groups of children have gone back to their respective classrooms the youngest children in the toddler group, who are only just learning how to sit still in class and concentrate, usually continue to play in the garden or on the large veranda where they can shelter from the hot sun or rain. This is great fun for us volunteer helpers, playing with happy little ones as they explore the outdoor play equipment and interact with each other and with us.

3:00- 4:00 pm – pick up time for children living outside the campus.

Between 3 and 4pm the children who live outside the campus are picked up by their parents or carers. However, some of the children at SAM live on campus, so they wait until they can go back up to their living quarters in the main campus for the evening and night. The staff tidy up and get the classrooms ready for the next day.

4:00 pm - end of a long but enjoyable school day.

The teachers and volunteers can recharge their batteries for the next day.

As volunteers, we certainly don't have time to get bored. We are given many tasks to do that contribute to the smooth running of the kindergarten and are encouraged to spend a lot of time with the children. Sometimes we take over from a teacher for part of a lesson. This helps us to develop our own skills, and it gives the children the chance to learn from a range of adults. We have to admit that the classroom is never as quiet and orderly when the teacher isn’t there – and when they come back there is suddenly much more quiet, still sitting and concentration!”

I hope that Amber and Diana have given you an insight and flavour of a typical day at SAM. All in all, it was a very busy and intensive day - but so rewarding for the teachers and volunteers – and more importantly fun for all the children! Thank you for supporting SAM and all the children cared for here; without your generous giving, none of this would be possible.

I would like to thank all the donors who contributed to the recent Little By Little campaign in September. We raised a wonderful total of $399 including a $128 bonus from GlobalGiving. I will be writing a new report at the beginning of November with information about the year-end fundraising event: Giving Tuesday on 29^th November.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the office via the website or myself personally, jill@kinderhulp-afrika.nl, I would love to hear from you.

If you would like more information about how you can sponsor a child at SAM or in one of the schools then you can check out this link: https://www.kinderhulp-afrika.nl/en/sponsor-a-child/sponsor-a-child

Our Motto, “FROM HELPLESS TO HOPEFUL”!

Please visit our website for more information and regular updates: https://www.kinderhulp-afrika.nl/en/

In the circle singing and dancing.

In we go!

Learning to Read in Top class.

Playroom pandemonium!

Running to Lunch!

Chapati.

Blowing bubbles is great fun.

Playing on the veranda.

Our three models!

Classroom tidy and ready for next day.

Links:

https://www.kinderhulp-afrika.nl/en/

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Jun 2, 2022
Back on Track...

By Jill van Leeuwen | Project Leader

Welcome back in class!

Back on Track…

SAM’s first term back has been a great success!

We are so thankful that our dedicated teachers and staff all returned to work on the historic day that schools re-opened in Uganda. This was made possible by the generosity of our donors and supporters’ contributions to our Emergency Fund, which helped pay our staff at least 70% of their salary through the long months of closure, and to maintain the buildings and campus. Many other schools in the area have been unable to re-open due to lack of staff and parents being unable to pay their fees.

We are so fortunate that SAM is once again full of bubbly, happy children and the whole campus is open and bursting with vibrance and energy!

Due to the high demand for educational places in the local schools after lockdown we decided to concentrate our resources and efforts into our 3 Kindergarten classes rather than the Day Care facilities.

Kindergarten Class 1 has 15 children (8 boys and 7 girls), Kindergarten 2 has 18 children (8 boys and 10 girls), and Kindergarten 3 has 21 children with 11 boys and 10 girls. We have 4 full-time teachers and one care assistant working with these children.

Florence, our Head Teacher, immediately noticed that all the children had been greatly affected by the long lockdown in a variety of ways. She spoke of children having difficulties listening to their teachers and some had very low concentration levels and soon lost interest in the class. Others had difficulties with socialising again and initially there was some inappropriate and challenging behaviour to address. Not surprisingly it took most of the children a long time to settle back into the school routines of reading, writing, class work and playing with others.

Most of the children had limited or no access to reading and writing materials or online studies during the lockdown, so had lost important communication and language skills. Our teachers found that most of them were unable to construct a sentence in English when they first returned, leading to frustration and misunderstandings.

Consequently, it has been a very challenging first term for Florence and her staff – yet she is quick to reflect that it has also been very satisfying. As the first term holidays begin Florence is delighted and proud to report that the children have come on in leaps and bounds, literally! They have relearned how to apply themselves in class, to listen, read, draw and write.

The children in kindergarten 1 can now colour, trace and copy letter symbols, and slowly by slowly are starting to express themselves with words in English.

Children in classes 2 and 3 are now reading and writing words and simple sentences. Their language and communication skills have improved so much that English is once again heard in the corridors, classrooms and playground!

Everyone has benefitted from being back in SAM - the social, academic and moral progress is evident, all helped by the range of regular activities provided. We have a morning circle where the children share their news and ask questions, group singing and rhymes, and morning devotions. Basic life skills, like toilet training and eating habits are taught and encouraged.

Challenges and Change

Sickness has been a challenge in this first term back – after such long periods without regular contact with other children of their own age, most of the children have been vulnerable to catching infections.

Also, partly due to the increase in our numbers, we have shortages of outdoor equipment such as swings and slides, sand pits, water features and playhouses etc.

Uganda, as everywhere in the world, is also being affected by the war In Ukraine and the challenges and unrest it is causing. Food prices are once again rising fast, and fuel is far more expensive. In addition, there are the negative knock-on consequences of the drought that is badly affecting parts of neighbouring Kenya.

Cheerful Thanks

The children, parents and staff are delighted with the new “SAM path” that was constructed during lockdown. If you missed it see the report ‘Good news ...SAM's New Path is Open!’ https://www.globalgiving.org/dy/v2/pe/progress-report/edit-progress-report.html?project.projId=42553&progressReport.id=172464

We are thankful that we were able to welcome our first group of volunteers after lockdown. They painted the playroom in SAM and sent hours playing with the children, giving them extra stimulation and attention. See photographs below.

Finally

We are so thankful that our Motto, “FROM HELPLESS TO HOPEFUL”! has been dusted off and is back in action!

Thank you for your support and for taking the time to read this report!

Classroom full of excited children.

Getting used to learning again!

Volunteer painting the playroom.

Wall mural.

Enjoying the brightly painted mural.

Playing and enjoying the attention.

Playground fun.

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