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.
