Ground Zero

Dear friends,

Thank you so much to all those who responded to my last post.  I am very grateful to one donor who has passed on information about the deaf children to others.  As a result we now have a new sponsor.  I received a good amount of funds in time to take the deaf children back to school at the beginning of February. 

I am now in a better position to write about what has happened with the move to Liberty Primary School at the beginning of this school year.  As some might remember, I had planned for Cece pupils to move to two different schools, Liberty for the lower school and Happy Day for the upper school.  This has not worked out.  Happy Day started to come up with extra financial demands, such as funding a full school feeding programme, which would have been impossible to manage.  I therefore asked all former Cece pupils to enroll at Liberty instead.  Over 150 of our former pupils have registered at Liberty, which is around half of the full enrolment at the school.  I have been appointed Director of Studies by the school and also teach six classes: English to Primary 7, Christian Religious Education to Primary 5 and 8 and literacy to Primary 1, 2 and 3.

I am finding that the difference in educational level between the pupils from Cece and those who came from other schools is stark.  The Cece pupils have been trained to interact with their teachers, and are mostly very active learners.  Literacy is good, especially among the higher classes.  The other students have come from various schools around the Nimule area, where they have not been given any foundation and are almost all illiterate, even those who are in the final year of primary school.  If asked a question they cower behind their desks, expecting to be beaten for being unable to answer.  Liberty only had one class last year, Primary 8.  Their results were generally poor; one boy took his 19% score on his results certificate and attempted to forge higher marks onto it.  The secondary school noticed the forgery and refused to accept him.

The teachers who have come from Cece have commented on the contrast and are justly very proud of the results of their teaching.  It has been a vindication of our approach to learning, especially teaching literacy, no corporal punishment and interacting with pupils.

At Liberty, we are back at square one in all other respects.  In January there were no school buildings, no toilets, no storeroom or teachers’ room, no food, very few teachers and large numbers of cows around the school site.  In short, it has been terribly difficult, but things are gradually taking shape.  There is a small church built of bamboo and mud on the site, which we received permission to use.  We have been using it for Primary 7 and 8, one class at each end of the room.  Until a few days ago, Primary 1 up to 6 were housed in a loaned building, which was terribly cramped.  Last week the owner suddenly asked for the building back, so we have constructed temporary classrooms, three of which are now usable.  As a result, each room has two classes in it.  The nursery classes (in three levels) are all crammed into another temporary classroom. 

I have requested the Local Education Office to highlight the school’s needs to relevant non-governmental organizations to help us with permanent structures.  This is because I am not comfortable with asking donors, who gave so generously before, to give for the same things again.  The money for these temporary classrooms has not come from you; it comes from the founder of Liberty Primary School, except for some smaller expenses, such as the costs of blackboards and some of the timbers and metal sheeting. 

We held teacher interviews a few weeks ago and have appointed enough teachers.  None of the applicants were trained teachers but most at least had teaching experience.  This is common in South Sudan.  We also have some teachers from Cece who have continued with us.  Until the appointments were made we were without teachers for around half the classes, which has been very distressing to me.  The main expense that I agreed to is the payment of teachers and I am trying very hard to make sure that that pot of money is available, as teachers are crucial to the work of a school, ahead of anything else in my view.  The monthly salary cost is almost £800, which is less than at Cece, where we were also paying cooks and a guard.  Right now, every step of the way is about prioritizing.

Two toilets have been built and are now functional.  In combination with the cattle issue, lack of access to toilets has been a major health worry.  Some parents have volunteered to talk to the cattle-keepers about taking their animals elsewhere. 

Providing lunch to staff and children remains an insoluble problem.  At Cece we had the benefit of the World Food Programme, but WFP have now stopped their operations due to the various crises elsewhere in the world.  Some pupils are therefore absenting themselves at lunchtime, which is very detrimental to their education.  I have tried asking parents to provide packed lunches, but this is too countercultural, and I have had no success at all.  I haven’t given up yet.  A couple of neighbouring families have noticed a business opportunity and have started cooking chapattis and mandazi (a type of sugarless doughnut) so we are not completely starved, even though it is not a balanced diet.

I have been asked to pay for school uniforms for all the Cece pupils.  This is beyond the money currently available.  The South Sudanese Pound is in a terrible state and has leapt to record highs against the dollar.  This will make it very hard for local families whose income is pitifully small (and in SSP), but is in our favour when bringing money into the country.  The total cost of uniforms, if I am able to pay for all the Cece pupils, will be around £1,000.  If this is not possible, we will at least contribute towards to the cost.

On the positive side, Cece’s 2023 Primary 8 did spectacularly well.  All passed at between 70.6 - 88.8%.  The girls have been accepted for scholarships to boarding schools in Uganda and a South Sudanese town called Magwi.  One boy has gone to minor seminary, while the remaining four boys have been accepted as planned at Kings College Secondary School.  The downside is that the plan of the secondary headteacher did not work out.  The NGO he had hoped would fund their places has stopped their sponsorship programme.  As the boys are from very poor backgrounds, it was clear that this would stop them from going on to secondary level, leaving them little better off than if they had never gone to school.  I therefore agreed to use some of the school funds to pay for their school fees and other requirements.  This is another financial headache.  I am currently paying little by little as money comes in.  This is not something I think we can continue to do for every batch of Primary 8 students and I am going to have to make that clear to this year’s Primary 8 class as gently as possible.

Please do pass this message on to any other people who might be able to help either with deaf sponsorship or with the ongoing expenses of the former Cece pupils in their new schools. 

My email address is rebeccamallinson1@gmail.com. Please do not use my old email address (ending in hotmail.co.uk) or reply directly to this email.  It no longer works and I will not be able to receive your emails.

New School Year 2024

I am getting ready for the new school year both in South Sudan and in Uganda.  I have been calculating how much will be needed for the deaf children, when I take them back to school at the beginning of February.  As I said in my previous post, the money received specifically for the sponsorships was not enough last year and I found it necessary to bail the sponsorship budget out by using money which should have been for the school.

As some of you will have seen in the international news, there have been major political problems in Uganda.  The Ugandan Government put into force a very severe new law making homosexuality a serious criminal offence.  The country faced, and continues to face, huge international governmental and NGO opposition, resulting in sanctions.  I am not going to say anything on the rights and wrongs of this; however, it has caused very high inflation in the country and is making an impact in all areas of life.  This includes the costs of taking the disabled children to school.  Costs rose so that instead of an average of £630 per child in 2022, the cost in 2023 was around £800.  That is an increase of around 25% from 2022 to 2023.

There is no sign of a change on either the Ugandan or the international side, so I fear that this financial impact will continue this year.  Please can I ask for assistance?  Only a few of the deaf children have donors at the moment, although there are some donors who give a large general donation, which is for the same purpose.  Those with donors are Alau, Joel and the two blind children.  Let me tell you something about the others who have never had direct sponsorship.

Alice started school in 2018 and has proved very bright.  She has just finished primary school and we are waiting for her school leaving exam results.  The school is confident that she will have passed.  She is going to go to a deaf secondary school this year, in a town called Lira, which is about one hundred miles from South Sudan, one third of the distance than from her primary school, so she will be able to go home in holiday time.  She is a very sensible, hardworking girl, always very cooperative and helpful with the younger pupils.  She has excelled in sports and taken part in several national school sports contests.  She is an orphan, who previously lived with her grandmother where she assisted her grandmother to make and sell fishing nets.  She is now living in one of the Ugandan refugee settlements with extended family when it is the school holidays.  Due to negative attitudes to deafness, her family members have been astonished at her academic capacity, to the great delight of her grandmother who was always very supportive.

Paul began his school life at Cece Primary School where he made no progress because of his deafness and the school’s lack of training in deaf teaching.  His father is elderly and incapacitated, so that Paul and his siblings were working to support their family outside school time.  Paul’s job was polishing shoes on the streets.  With the permission of his father I took him to school in Uganda in 2019. He is now about to start his final year at primary school and will hopefully go to secondary school in 2025.  He has made a lot of progress.  Like Alice, he is keen on sports and takes part in national contests in Uganda.  He loves football.

Lillian became deaf as a result of meningitis, of which she nearly died.  At that time she was living in one of the refugee settlements in Uganda.  Her mother has mental health problems and cannot care for her.  Her father is dead.  Fortunately the father’s co-wife (this is a polygamous society) took pity on her.  When Lillian contracted meningitis, her stepmother was unable to afford medical care, so they moved back to South Sudan and settled in Nimule, where there is a free hospital.  Lillian, as in the case of Paul, started her school life at Cece Primary School.  I took her to Uganda at the same time as Paul.  They have gone up the school together and are both now about to start their final year of primary school.

Aluma, like Lillian, became deaf because of meningitis.  Unfortunately for him, the meningitis also affected his right arm and one leg.  His right arm is paralysed and he walks with a severe limp.  He can only use sign language with one hand as a result.  He also has severe epilepsy, which is holding him back.  He has medication for the epilepsy but it is not completely effective and he still has fits and has missed a lot of school due to hospitalization.  In spite of all his health problems, Aluma is usually very cheerful and is keen to do well.  He will be in Primary 6 this year.  I have been told that he stays behind in the classroom after lessons, working hard to make more progress.  I really feel for him.  He joined at the same time as Alice in 2018, right at the beginning of my mission to help the deaf children.  Deaf secondary schools in Uganda tend to have two streams, one academic and one for vocational training.  I, the school and his parents expect that Aluma will do vocational training after finishing at primary school.  In that way he will be able to be a useful member of his family and clan in future.  He is most fortunate in having a very supportive family.  Aluma’s school costs are a bit higher than for the other pupils.  This is because he needs regular medication for his epilepsy and extra snacks to eat at the same time because the medicine is too strong to be taken without food.

Vibrant joined the school in 2021.  He is deaf because of a drug overdose when he was a baby.  He is a very bright little boy, who picked up Ugandan sign language very fast and uses it equally fast, so that people have to keep asking him to slow down.  His parents live in Torit, the capital of the state where I am living, but a long distance away.  They have relatives in Nimule and are originally from this area, so that it is practical to take him to school.  As in the case of Aluma, his family are very supportive.   He will be in Primary 5 this year.

Jennifer joined the school in 2022.  She is a very self-isolated child compared to all the others, who are far more sociable.  This worries the school quite a lot and they do try to bring her out.  She is doing well academically and will start Primary 3 this year.  I believe that her self-isolation is due to her life experience before starting school.  The majority of people in South Sudan do not treat their disabled family members well and exclude them from most activities, treating them as a curse or a burden.  This can have a psychological impact especially when the child has no means of communication at all.

Jackline is the latest to join the school.  She joined in 2023.  She was very fearful when she arrived but has settled down well.  I think the fear was due to the fact that nobody was able to explain to her where she was going, who I was, or anything else.  I was the first white person she had ever met, which I am sure added to her fear.  She is now fine.  When I went to visit at the beginning of the second term, she came rushing to hug me.  She is a very fast learner and is going to Primary 2 this year.

Alafi was at school in Gulu from 2021 but was not happy there.  He used to cry bitterly at the beginning of each term, when leaving for school.  His mother asked me to transfer him to be with the other deaf children in Budaderi.  His previous school recommended that he move to Primary 3 this year, but Budaderi Primary School will, I am sure, do their own assessment. 

Unlike the UK, the education system in Uganda (and South Sudan) does not go by age; instead it goes by ability.  The advantage of this system (at least for disabled children) is that it is a more flexible system.  A child making outstanding progress can be moved up, and a struggling child can be moved to a more suitable class.  None of the deaf children started school at five years old as they would in the UK.  Most were big even by Ugandan standards, so Budaderi Primary School try to be extra vigilant to speed up their education if at all possible.  I don’t think this happens at secondary level.

I do hope sponsors can be found for all these pupils, and that those already sponsoring can increase their donations.  As the cost last year was roughly £800 per child, can I ask for £850 instead, as I am sure that the costs will not stay at last year’s level.  My great dread is that there will not be enough money in the pot for the school costs of all the children.  It would be terrible to let them down.  I am not taking on any more children for the same reason.

As I have mentioned before, the grand plan is to start a hearing impairment unit in Nimule with the help of Alau, the oldest and most advanced of the deaf students, once he finishes his studies.  I had the opportunity to talk to the Local Education Office in Nimule recently and they are keen to support this plan.  They have asked a local government-run primary school for land where we can build the necessary building.  Being government land, there should be no more problems of difficult local landowners.  This plan, if successful, will remove the need to take deaf students to Uganda except at secondary level.  The costs will be lower, apart from the cost of building work, and will give opportunities to study to more deaf children than currently.  Right now there is no educational provision for deaf students in South Sudan, so this would be a ground-breaking initiative.

Please do pass this message on to any other people who might be able to sponsor any of the above pupils. 

My email address is rebeccamallinson1@gmail.com. Please do not use my old email address (ending in hotmail.co.uk) or reply directly to this email.  It no longer works and I will not be able to receive your emails.