Big two weeks

These past two weeks have been very productive for me.   After taking the first week to settle in and get more acquainted with life in Uganda, I hit the ground running with numerous Educate! related meetings and activities.   

 Before I get to the highlights of the meetings, I wanted to talk a little about Springs of Hope ( www.cetu.org.uk).  The school, which just opened in February after being constructed in a period of two months, has about 35 students (20 in the first year of secondary school and 15 in the second year), many of whom are AIDS orphans and stay on campus even during their vacations.   They are all great kids and are very well behaved – I was surprised at how well they pay attention when you are speaking and how rarely we have to tell them to quiet down. I have a few pictures of the school and kids in my Uganda photo album.  Carlito and I teach five classes – two on entrepreneurship and three on various subjects from the environment to having a role model. Teaching is very difficult no matter where you do it, and this experience has definitely reaffirmed that for me.

 The school has some great plans for future expansion, including building more dormitories, constructing a dining hall, and expanding to support more needy students who cannot pay their fees.   The Headteacher, Angelo, is a strong visionary and truly cares about these kids and teaching in general.  I even heard from someone here that at a previous position as Headteacher he worked unpaid for 8 months while the head official at the school stole all of the money. I am glad that he’s no longer working in such an environment.  If you are interested in learning more about Springs of Hope, please let me know ( boris@educateafrica.org). 

 Apart from volunteering at Springs of Hope, I have been setting up various meetings, and in the process have met some truly incredible social entrepreneurs.   Last Friday I met up with a man named Collins, who runs a social enterprise (a business that aims to do good) called Afroeducare, and who more or less blew me away with his ideas and insight into development.   Though he is only four years out of college, he has already run Afroeducare for two of those four years.  The organization aims to work towards the development of Africa by focusing on Uganda’s education system.  Based on my understanding, it makes money by marketing universities and secondary school institutions — that can afford to do so — to other East African countries.   I believe the idea is that by marketing these institutions and increasing international enrolment, demand for them will increase, leading to increased quality, and in the meantime resulting in cheaper fees for native Ugandans.

 In addition to this venture — which I think is great, since it is the epitome of a social enterprise (making money by doing good) — Afroeducare has a social development unit that for now is only implementing one of the several very innovative development initiatives it has in mind.   The project is called Kids Helping Kids (you can read more about it on their website – www.studyinuganda.com ) and aims to change the community service culture in Uganda, which Collins told me is more or less nonexistent, since very few incentives for it exist (as opposed to the states where every student needs it on his or her college application).  

 Kids Helping Kids, which is in its first pilot run, has groups of ten students in privileged secondary schools submit proposals for community service projects.   Out of the 28 applications, 12 were chosen and funded $500 to implement the project in the school’s community.  Those that complete the project successfully will receive $50 per participant, and any teacher who is shown to have helped considerably will receive $200.   In addition, as a requirement for each participant, he or she must mentor students in primary schools, in effect passing on the culture of community service to younger students.   The award ceremony for the first run is tomorrow, and I will definitely be there.    

 This project seems very innovative and well thought out, and I am eager to learn about the results of this pilot run.   Collins really struck me as a very dynamic social entrepreneur and based on our one meeting, I am fairly confident that his organization will go very far.  

 The following day I met with another very impressive social entrepreneur named Martin, who started a school very similar to Springs of Hope, which also just opened in February.   Similar to Collins, Martin is only five years out of college.  To build the school, which lies on his family’s land, Martin took out a $9,500 loan as a donation to the school (a huge amount by Ugandan standards, where real GDP is about $600 per capita).   Another $9,500 was raised from others who took out loans in smaller sums.  He also uses about 60% of his current salary (he works as a commercial loan officer for a rural development bank) to make up for the shortfall in monthly operating income.

 I was thoroughly amazed at all Martin has done, all while working a full time job several hours from the school.   He commutes back to Kampala every weekend and teaches in the school on Sundays.  All of the teachers currently get paid a fraction of the standard wage and pretty much volunteer their time so the 45 students there can get an education.   It’s truly remarkable how far this school has done with so few resources.  Yet Martin is now aiming to enrol an additional 100 students in the next year.   His goal is to eventually have a total of 1500 students, with 1000 well-off students subsidizing 500 needy students. 

 This Tuesday I visited a school called McKay, which the Teachers for East Africa Alumni organization I mentioned earlier is very enthusiastic about.   After spending some time learning about the school from the Headteacher, Gertrude, I can see why.  Since Gertrude became Headteacher in 2001, the school has grown from 260 students to its current 700, and the percentage of students sitting for the A level exam (graduation exam) who pass has went from 68% to 93%.   The school has also implemented a variety of sustainability and income generating initiatives.  It has reduced its fuel and electricity costs and completely erased water costs with a water collection system.   It has also started a piggery to generate income, and encouraged students to sell the arts and crafts they produce.  It has even started a quarterly magazine that it sells to the community.   I was quite impressed. 

 In addition, to round out my highlight week, I finally got in to speak with the Peace Corps today.   I had tried to go to the office yesterday but was stopped at the security gate (the compound is very well protected…).  After trying to explain for fifteen minutes that I wanted to learn more about getting a Peace Corps volunteer, the best I got from the security guard was an offer to come back the next day with a letter stating my desire to meet someone.  I instead pulled out my notebook and handed him a quick impromptu letter and left somewhat irritated.  But when I got home, I was happily surprised to see an e-mail in my inbox from the Uganda Peace Corps country director telling me to reach out to the country program officer (I love Amherst College connections…).   I quickly arranged to meet with the officer, Mary, today.

 The meeting went incredibly well and it appears that we may be starting the process to acquire a volunteer.   A Peace Corps volunteer would be incredibly helpful as an on-the-ground resource to develop our programs in Uganda.  I have met several here and they are all incredibly motivated and eager to work (one that I met was transferring because he did not have enough to do).   This could really be the start of a much more serious Educate! presence in Uganda…

 More to come soon.  Several of our Educate! students are volunteering at various schools in my village and I’m looking forward to writing about some of the exceptional things these students are doing and plans they have for the future.  

In case you missed the earlier link, here are the first Uganda pictures. 

First impressions

I arrived to Uganda this past Sunday, July 1st, and have so far been here for five days.  It seems like I have been here for much longer though.  Even after two days I felt like I had been here for at least a week and that I already had a decent understanding of how things worked here (given that I had only been here for such a short time). 

I think I can comfortably say that I have had a decent amount of travel experience (a rough count puts me at around 15+ countries) but I have never been in a place where the people have been so welcoming and friendly, which may explain why it seems like I have been here for longer.  After less than a week, I can already say that I have several friends here and many more that I can easily chat with.  Just today, my friend from home Carlito and I went to the biggest market in Kampala accompanied by two of our new friends.  One of the guys, Ronnie, didn’t even need to buy anything but just came along to hang out with us. 

In addition, people always come by to visit us (by us I mean me, Carlito, and two girls from Britain and New Zealand, Becky and Anna, respectively, who are volunteering with us), often only to just say hi.  The other day we came back late from a trip to Kampala, about 7 kilometers from our village, Bulenga, only to find that two teachers from the school had come over a couple hours earlier to say hi and had been waiting for us the whole time. 

Even in Kampala, random people in the street will be very nice and friendly.  Though in a market area many will call out to you, referring to you as “Mzungu”, which in essence means foreigner, no one will ever be threatening.  Many cracked a big smile as I practiced my Luganda (the most commonly used native language in Uganda).  Walking down the street, little children will always smile and wave to you, yelling hi or bye mzungu.  You can’t help but get used to always happily waving back. 

Many of my friends from school studied abroad in places all over the world, from Europe (I myself studied in Paris), to Latin America, Australia, and Asia.  Yet all returned having mostly spent their time with Americans, saying that the locals are very hard to meet, which is understandable.  But after 5 days here, I already feel like I have a better community here than I ever really had in my whole time abroad (5 months).  I think that says a lot about the Ugandan people. 

In addition, probably thanks to the warm nature of the Ugandan people, which I have been told comes from the importance of family in their culture, I have felt incredibly safe here and very much at home.  It’s amazing how quickly this place takes you in and makes you feel like you’ve been here forever.  I’m interested to see how I will feel here after spending two months here. For now, I am just looking forward to our weekend trip to Jinja, at the base of the Nile.  It’s supposed to have some crazy rafting rapids.  Wish me luck…

A recent application

We recently received this application from a student we are hoping to sponsor. I thought it was very touching and worth sharing. Keep in mind that these students have very limited internet time and are very rushed when they write these, which helps explain some of the grammar mistakes.

Dear sir,

Am a congolese by nationality male aged 17yrs old a registered refugee from kyangwali settlement camp residing in mukarange village block 5. I am hereby humbly submitting in my Application asking for the above underlined refference.

The war of congo started on tuesday april 1996 during the night when we were sleeping. We waked up and moved to very night to the bush. My father’s brother who was left sleeping was captured in the house and was burnt there together with his family hence died. We stayed in the bush for almost one week eating and drinking water from the tree. All boarders to uganda were clossed with heavy gun and too heavy arm. When sleeping in the bush one day in the night, Rebels came and fire us hence ran stepping on dead peaple, peaple died and died passing in peaple blood flowing. We ran and lested on a mt. called Bugusa where they destroyed Kinyamahura Catholic Church when we were seing standing on the top of the mauntain. When they saw us they fired us and we ran tacking the direction of going to Goma.

One day when we moved yet the boarders are still clossed but looking for the way to closs, we where all tied and yet is coming to night, we lested and slept in the church where we were looked for by the rebels and after sleeping to night. They came and captured us and began to shoot us, my elder brother way shoot and died from they, some other jumped through the windows and there legs where cut off. I had one my Aunt who was found remaing in the that church after she had failed to run since she was tied and having too pregnant, She was ask wher are others and after failing to tell, She catched, pierced a long sharped tree from the Anus passing through the stomach to the head. Please if i remamber the death of my aunt i get pain to cry hence she died there where in that very night, I ran alone and since it was too night, i came to fall in a long big hall where they the rebels used to throw the dead peaple, i stayed in that hall for almost three days no food to eat no water to drink after i failed to came out since i was tied and even still young .i was about to die there. There came a man passing nearer to that hall this was by God’s power and he struggled hard and removed me there and took me for first aid at Rwankuba hospital where i got to meet my parents after one week hungrily at a place known as Kitagoma where we took way throuigh the bush to Uganda kitagoma and we where taken in Nyakabande transit kisoro by the help of one of a samalitan tied who took us in the vehicle when he was working with UNHCR.

When it was in 1997, The UNHCR planned to transifer us in the camp. Here in this transit we faced many problems like lack of food, Lack of water to drink, kolera attack us and too insecuruty, so they took us transifering us to another camp called Kyangwali in Hoima District, we us to sleep outside and it happened for almost three weeks, no food, water to drink, we us to lost rippen Bananas which led to Dioreya and many other died becuase of hunger like my you brother called Erick i also died too and i too sleeped in the bed and failed to come out becuase of hunger and they came to find about to die there. They picked me from the bed after three days, we got problems of snakes attack were my mother was bitten with a very big snake and was taken in the hospital and she was given first aid.

After here i planned to begin studies by fail where i used to go to school with hunger and under poor situation. Here we used to sleep on glasses and please since they were old they couldn’t accommodate the family well i was picked among the 5 peaple to go for a bussary of football which lasted for two years and my club was called TUJENE FC and also managed to study by digging one term and another term i report to school. This also happened for almost one year and from their i failed to school and hence stopped when in senior three. However, I’ve humbly got contented to come and put myself into your hands requesting for assistance from you. So please i am sending my folling tears my nees down asking for your care by upholding my future as my educational holder.

Well, I will be gratefull if my Application is put into your consideration and if you competience meets my needs

Thanks.

Qn2:

I would like to receive an education in order to promote my future of my family and to help the community at large and to also have a beautiful future and a standard life.

Qn3

I would like to be an enginear, Tourist. Journalist and education can help me accomplish my dreams by reading hard, passing at a high level and joining a better school. I promise this that if i join a better one i can do better.

Qn4

My hobbies are playing football as means of passing leisure, Volleyball, Jogging with freinds, Playing musics and reading books.

Qn5

My families curent situation is that the are old, poor no food to eat and too poor accomodation and sickness as due to many diseases attack, sleeping under poor sites.

If you are interested in learning more about the conflict this student was involved in check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Congo_War .