Report from BHW Uganda Partnership Facilitators Following Visits in February and June 

Recent Events

Chosen Generation School, Mbale Village (UGA01c)

We went out and visited the school in Mbale Village. Howard Peebles from Shared Hope spoke to the school about the importance of the Bible and relying upon it and living according to its teachings. The school is quite impressive. There are approximately 100 children in the school with six teachers. The school is clearly very well organised, although the local community has major challenges.

The school is facing major challenges in relation to water. There is no well within the immediate vicinity of the village and the water is brought from the lake, with consequent health issues. Alcoholism is rife and the town has no medical or other facilities at all.  It is approximately 4 kilometres down a dirt road from Katosi town itself.

There is a proposal in place to bring a bore and install a well in the village for the benefit of the community.

New Initiatives in Katosi

Since our last report Timothy has started a home for babies and neglected children in Katosi town. There are two mothers who care for the children in a house which the church has purchased. The youngest child is 7 months and the oldest is 2½ years. Because of time constraints we did not get to visit this but plan to go next year.

Timothy has also started a care programme for elderly people in the town who are being neglected and not appropriately supported by their families.  At the time we talked to him they were providing support for six elderly people, although he did indicate that there was a much larger group who lacked family support.  He described the situation of the elderly who are not supported as “appalling”. He is really pleased that the church in the community can make a positive difference in this regard. 

Katosi School (UGA01a)

When we were at Katosi last year Timothy indicated that there were 524 children in the school at the middle of the year. It was clear to us that this number had grown significantly between then and now. Timothy gave us the figure of 755 children when we met him in February although this had changed to 674 by our meeting in June! The numbers in the school seem completely impossible to verify. What was very obvious is that the school now feels like it is bursting at the seams and seems much larger than this time last year. According to Timothy one class has 74 children and another 62. We certainly saw some very large classes (by our standards). There are now 258 children living in the dormitory.

Timothy and Janepher’s daughter Mighty (who has a Bachelor of Arts in education management) is now significantly involved in the administration of the school.

The children continue to do well academically. There are exams for the pupils in the 13-14 age group and of the children at the school 45 out of 48 passed.

In Timothy’s words “children come to the school because the teachers take their responsibilities seriously (which does not always happen in the Government education system)”. The teachers meet for prayer and also impart Christian values and morality. There has not been a case of a pregnancy in the school to date (which is amazing given the number of children and their backgrounds).

The school is starting to encourage pupils at senior 7 level and above to take positive steps towards their future and to give them direction in life. They see this as a big challenge. If students move on to tertiary education in universities they tend to move away from the area because there are no jobs or factories at Katosi. In fact the only employment in Katosi centres around farming and subsistence living. Timothy has a proposal for vocational training but this has not yet matured much.

Farming

Timothy and Janepher do have access to some farmland. They use approximately 5-6 acres of this land for growing food for the school and for feeding the pupils. Some of the crop is also sold. They get two harvests a year off this land. Janepher oversees the farming of the land.

There are also 12 cows which are milked and the milk is provided to the school.

New Land

Timothy has arranged to buy the land behind the school referred to in our July 2014 report. The money for this was raised by six men that he met at a conference in Dallas, Texas last year. The land was purchased for 27 million Uganda shillings (approx. US$9,000).

The school clearly needs to expand and this additional land provides the basis for some of that.

Foundations for Farming

Timothy, along with four others, attended the three day Foundations for Farming training which we held in Jinja in June.  John Vlaming (BHW's Agricultural Director) had previously done an introductory training in 2014 and we were now looking to “train the trainers”.  We think that Timothy, having attended the training, now understands that Foundations for Farming will be very helpful.

Another useful outcome from this was that while we were at Jinja we arranged for the leaders of all BHW's Uganda partnerships to spend some time together discussing various issues and their respective situations. We could see that this was very helpful in giving Timothy an understanding of micro-financing. Timothy previously had significant concerns about micro-loan programmes because he had seen some of the more commercially run schemes and the fact that they took advantage of the poor, rather than benefiting them. Timothy has two men who are assisting him in the possible implementation of a micro-finance programme but this is very much in its infancy and to the best of our understanding has not developed beyond the discussion stage.

We think that Timothy also now gets the importance of Foundations for Farming and that he, together with the other leaders he brought with him, will be able to take Foundations for Farming back to Katosi and help to implement it. Timothy also wants to see land around the school developed into garden to assist the children to both understand agriculture and also to grow food for the school.

Family

The other interesting news is that their daughter Jireh got married on 15 August. Timothy and Janepher were also responsible for the marriage of another school graduate from Lugazi and appear to be reaching a stage where there are a number of weddings of children from the school. They are seen as the ‘parents’ of lots of children.

Current Issues and Challenges

• Helping graduates from Katosi School develop vocational training options, rather than academic ones with less likelihood of obtaining long term employment.

• For Foundations for Farming to take off in the Katosi and Mbale Village communities.  We are hopeful that the leadership has really caught the vision for this and the significant potential for livelihood transformation that goes with it.

• There is still concern that the teachers’ salaries and conditions need to be increased. At this stage BHW is not going to increase funding so this is something which is going to have to be worked out by Timothy in other ways.

• Katosi is a very challenging area and there is no difficulty in finding new projects and things to undertake. One of the challenges they face is to determine what is appropriate to undertake and what is not.

Prayer and Praise Points

1) The Foundations for Farming training in Jinja was fantastic. John did a wonderful job and we believe that the people who attended were inspired. We look forward to going back next year to see the outcome in Katosi.

2) The school continues to thrive and grow. It is a very obvious example of quality education in what is a very poor area.

3) There has been a lot of ongoing provision for the children and for their wellbeing. There are new mattresses in the dormitories, new mosquito nets, the feeding programme (which BHW supports), the library which has been funded from New Zealand and the science laboratory are all testamentary to Timothy’s vision and determination.

4) There is clearly a continuing need for work in the community to change the beliefs, mindsets and behaviours that contribute to poverty. For instance, it is understood that approximately 70% of the male population are bigamists.  

5) Praise God for Jireh’s marriage and the fact that so many of the children graduating the school are doing so well. 

6) There is good agriculture and dairy development already happening related to the school to supplement the feeding programme. Continue to pray for protection and success in this.

Comments

We had really good interactions with Timothy at Katosi in February and he made us feel very welcome when we visited with the team from Shared Hope, UK. Again he was very responsive in the leaders’ meeting at the Foundations for Farming training in Jinja in June. Timothy is a very dynamic and capable man who is making great strides in his community. Bright Hope World counts it a privilege to continue to be involved with people of the calibre of Timothy and Janepher and we look forward to partnering with them into the future.