The new school year has a bumpy start

Dear all,

A very belated Happy New Year to you all.

Here in Nimule, we have been having plenty of challenges but are on a much more even keel than when I wrote last.  I am very grateful for the donations which came in response to my last blog post.  As you will see below, your donations came at an opportune time.

We have three excellent new teachers who replaced some who were unable to continue with us for various reasons.  Classes continued after the Christmas break, although we were still pressed for space, with two classes having to share classrooms.  Our teacher, Mohammed, who we sent away just before Covid to do a teacher training course is now back with us, to the delight of the pupils who remember him with great affection.  He passed his course ‘top of the school’ and has been given the chance to go for further studies to Belgium in October.  This is disappointing for us, but a wonderful opportunity for him.

In December we changed to a new School Management Committee, which has meant that I needed to organize training for them and myself in our responsibilities.  This was done through Drop in the Bucket, who gave us a day-long training.  The great thing is that the SMC will be able to support the school with advice and practical help.

We have received a large supply of national curriculum textbooks from the Ministry of Education for classes from Primary 4 to Primary 8.  This is a great windfall, as there has been a huge shortage in the whole town.  In some cases, there has been only one textbook for a whole class, so that only the teacher has been able to use it.  If textbooks go missing, it has been a matter of going to other schools to beg from them, knowing that we are all in the same position.

With the help of your donations, we were able to pay our teachers in December and January, for which a heartfelt thank you.

All seemed to be ticking along well, when there was a completely unexpected decision from the Ministry of Education that all schools were to close one week later (on 27^th January) and reopen for the new academic year on 6^th February, with only a week’s turnaround time.  Originally the school year was supposed to end on 24^th March, so no school has been able to finish their year’s teaching.  The system in South Sudan is to hold end of year exams to determine pupil promotion to the next level, but there was no time for that this time.  Instead, we were advised to make use of term 2 exam results to promote our pupils.  I believe the decision was taken to bring South Sudan into line with the other East African Community countries.

From our own school’s point of view, we are going to have our first Primary 8 class, which is the final year of primary education here in South Sudan.  If pupils do not pass their Primary Leaving Examination, they will not be allowed to go to secondary school, so this is a crucial year for them.  Knowing this, we have been preparing our Primary 6 and 7 classes with simulated papers.  We are about to interview more teachers and will hopefully employ two new teachers, so that we have enough to cater for the new class.

The basic framework of the classrooms.  The walls
will be made of bamboo poles and the roof will
be made of metal sheets.

There were already problems of not enough classrooms.  With Primary 8 about to start, we now need three classrooms in a very short period of time and with very limited funds.  We looked for quotations for making two temporary classrooms out of bamboo poles and with corrugated metal roofing.  Most contractors, knowing that there was a ‘white woman’ in charge, gave exorbitant estimates which would have created a palace.  Luckily, our guard recommended a much more reasonable contractor who is now making the classrooms out of bamboo poles.  The third classroom will be a room which is currently used as a storeroom.  We are going to clean it out and put the materials behind a screen.  That room can then be used for a small class.  Registrations start next week, so time is not on our side. 

Desks of the type we want to make.

The next problem looming on the horizon is the need for new desks due to an increase in the number of classes and classrooms.  We are going to begin the school year by making do with mats for the youngest class, as there is currently no budget for desks due to the construction work on the classrooms.  We have received one quotation so far, which is for the equivalent of nearly £70 per three-seater desk.  That is not including transport, which is often a similar amount to the cost price.  I hope to find a better price elsewhere as we will need at least 10 or 15 desks.  It is not possible to buy readymade furniture here.

Like South Sudan, the Ugandan school year starts on 6^th February, so I really have my hands full at the moment.  As a result, I am in the midst of making two trips to Uganda taking a couple of blind children to one school and the deaf children to another one at a much greater distance near a town called Mbale, near the border with Kenya.  I have warned the headteacher in Mbale that we will be several days late.  There is another couple of deaf children who go to school in Gulu, who will be taken back by their parents.  I have just paid their school fees while in Uganda on the first trip.

Mary and Bernard held by the two blind teachers.  
Bernard's mother is on the left.

As mentioned, we have two blind children who are starting school for the first time, at a school called Firefly School for the Blind, which is newly reopening after a long gap since Covid.  They are a boy and a girl, both 7 years old, called Bernard and Mary.  This is the first time either of them has ever been to school and they were very excited beforehand and impatient to arrive.  The school is founded and run by a blind man called Alfred Okello (centre of photo), and is situated around 40 kilometres away from Nimule, in Uganda, which is very convenient as in future the parents will be able to take them to school themselves.  The children will need to learn English and Acholi (the local language of the area), neither of which they know at the moment.  They are from different tribes, one Madi and the other Lotuku, so there will be a lot of language barriers for all concerned.  One thing which I find remarkable here is how quickly everybody (except me) learns new languages, so I am not too worried about this.  

I was warned that school fees for blind children would be more expensive than for the deaf children as they will need special Braille paper and Braille writers, which have to be imported to Uganda, but in fact the fees seem to be a bit less than for the deaf school in Gulu.  The school already has blind-adapted computers, which is a major achievement for a small rural school in Uganda. The costs so far, for the first term, are just over £250 per child.  That includes buying mattresses, mosquito nets, sheets and blankets, which will not need to be bought again as well as the cost of school uniforms.

As mentioned, Alafi and Joel will be taken back to their deaf school in Gulu by their parents.  As I type, I have just paid their school fees and am going back to South Sudan armed with the money for their other expenses, which the parents will use when they bring them to school on Sunday.  The total anticipated expenses are £260 each.

Later in the week, I will make a second trip to Uganda to take the remaining nine deaf children to their schools near Mbale.  I will be leaving the school registration process at Cece Primary School in the hands of our most capable teachers while I spend a week in Mbale.  Among the children going to Mbale will be a 13-year-old deaf girl called Jackline (local spelling), who has never been to school before.   I anticipate costs per term of a similar level to the other two schools.

Sadly, I have had to make the decision to stop taking Assumpta to school.  She has severe learning difficulties as well as being profoundly deaf and has made no progress at all since she started school in 2018 in spite of the best efforts of the school.  She was not very happy at school, watching her schoolmates progressing while she was completely unable to keep up.  She is now 17 years old.  Her mother died last year, and she is now living with extended family.  I am glad to say that she has settled in well with them, but they live a long way from Nimule, in Juba, the capital city of South Sudan.  Her family seem happy with her.  Money for sponsorships is tight, especially with the two blind children and the new deaf girl, so there was really no alternative.  We are really in need of more sponsors for these children.

If you can help with monthly donations towards teacher salaries, sponsorship for the disabled children, or fundraising for desks, please contact me on rebeccamallinson1@gmail.com and I will send you a gift aid form.  Please do pass this message on to any other people who might be able to assist us.