Dear all,
I have made a New Year’s Resolution. Last year I was thoroughly overburdened with
all my responsibilities, for the school (guiding, teaching and fundraising),
for the deaf children (fundraising and taking them to and fro to school) and
also for an increasing number of older children being discharged from their
orphanage, where I used to volunteer, who are now coming to me asking for help
to begin their lives. By the end of the
year I was completely exhausted and ill.
I have realized that I need to
step back and look for people to share all this work. If I do not do so, I will wear myself out,
and then the school will collapse, the deaf children will have no school fees,
and the former orphans will have nobody to turn to. In short, my work here will not be
sustainable. The local people in Nimule
are by and large without the necessary educational, computer or administration
skills to take on my work.
An example of how overstretched I am, is
as follows. Just as we were about to
start our school registrations, I had a call from the headteacher of the
primary school for the deaf asking me to bring the four deaf children urgently
as the hospital had decided to test the hearing of all the deaf children in
their area the following Monday. I
therefore had to hurriedly inform the parents of the children that we needed to
travel to Mbale two weeks’ earlier than planned. This entails a ten hour bus trip, with a
hotel stay at the beginning to allow us to catch a very early bus. The headteacher and teachers were left to
deal with our school registrations alone.
As none of them are trained administrators (unlike me), the results were
that they made rather a mess of the administrative process, all of which needed
to be disentangled on my return, exhausted after my ten hour return bus trip.
If you are able to help either from your
own country with fundraising, or would like to come and volunteer even for a
short time, please let me know. You may
have other ideas of how to help, which have not occurred to me. In case you worry about coming to South
Sudan, a peace agreement was signed last year, and it seems that the warring
factions are serious this time. Nimule,
in any case, has not suffered from the war, apart from the resulting
hyper-inflation and large numbers of internally displaced people from
elsewhere.
In short, if you are able to help in
practical terms, I will not be able to thank you enough!
In the meantime, here is my update.
We are about to start our new academic
year, after a very difficult registration period in which we have been deluged
with new children, many of whom we had to turn away. We accepted 55 new students altogether. Some of our former pupils did not come to
re-enrol, so it is not clear if they are returning or not. Assuming that all the children turn up on 4th
February (which is likely), we will have an increase in numbers from 180 in 5
classes last year to 228 in 6 classes this year.
Two teachers left us at the end of last
year. We also need more teachers to cope
with the new class. We advertised for
new teachers and have had a good response.
Interviews will be held this coming Friday. We are hoping for four new teachers, two to
replace those who left us last year and two to help us to teach the expanded
number of classes. Altogether we expect
to have eleven teachers including myself (unpaid) and our headteacher, who also
teaches.
With these increased numbers of students
and teachers, there will also be an increase in the need for food for the
children and teacher salaries. We are in
serious need of increased regular giving from our donors so that we can
continue in a stable fashion. If you are
able to donate a regular amount each month, it will assist us greatly. If many people donate small amounts, we will
be in a much better position. If you are
a UK tax payer, we will be able to claim 25p to each pound, which also makes a
very big difference.
We have still not managed to roof the two
outstanding classrooms due to lack of funds, so that one of our new classes
will have to occupy the teacher room, at least at the start of the school
year. Please, if you are able to help
with a larger one-off payment, we will be able to roof at least one more
classroom. If we can roof both, we will
be able to divide our pre-primary class, which is currently much too big. We have come so far, with foundations and
walls in place, for which many thanks. All
that is needed is a roof!
As mentioned in my last post, our
supporting charity Opportunity through Education has registered us through Give as you Live. This website acts as a
portal through which to shop online.
Each time you use it, a percentage goes to the charity of your choice. Please note that Give as You Live cannot be
used for donations.
It is now possible to donate online
by clicking on this link to My Donate. My Donate will unfortunately be closing at the end of June this year, but please make the most of it until then.
If you dislike online giving and wish to
give direct through our bank account, please let me know if you are able to
help by email so that I can send a gift aid form for Opportunity Through
Education. Rebeccamallinson1@hotmail.co.uk .
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