The End of the School Year 2024

Dear all,

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

I  arrived a week before Christmas in a very chilly London, which is a huge shock after 36⁰c temperatures in South Sudan.  Since I last wrote, the school and disabled children have concluded their final term of the school year., which gave me the time to visit.

Regarding the deaf pupils: Alice had a health emergency at her secondary school but has made a full recovery. She has struggled this year, because the sign language used is different from that used at her primary school as it is in a different tribal area. This is something which will affect those following her as well. Her results have improved as she has learnt the new signs.

The primary school deaf pupils

I had to make two separate trips to the primary school in Budaderi because the two final year students had to be collected nearly a month earlier than those at a lower level. It was completely exhausting because of the long distances. All of the deaf students are progressing to the next level, with Aluma, Paul and Lillian leaving primary school. They will join Alice in early February. I don’t expect to receive Paul and Lillian’s leaving certificate results until late January. Once those are received the secondary school will decide whether they can go on with academic studies, or join the school’s vocational training section. Aluma will definitely be in the vocational training section due to his additional disabilities, which I mentioned in my last post.

Alau finished his final secondary school exams in Nimule and feels confident that he will have passed. The plan is for him to return with me and the deaf primary pupils to Budaderi in the new school year, where he will be a student teacher for the deaf for a year. Then, in 2026, I hope to start the hearing impairment unit in Nimule, where he will be a teacher. The new school site is on government land, which will be relatively secure. I have found funding for building a classroom block.

Bernard and Mary on the day they received their canes.

Regarding the two blind pupils, Bernard has passed his first year exams with flying colours and is now very confident with Braille. Mary is struggling because of her other needs (fetal alcohol syndrome) but is making surprisingly good progress considering her difficulties. She is starting to speak in the school’s local language (Acholi), can find her way around the school using her white cane and can now use the toilet, which are all major achievements for her. Best of all (although she is silent in class and came bottom in the end of year exams) she has been overheard in the dormitory speaking about various topics covered in class, so the school feel that she is going to make more progress, even if it is at a lower level than Bernard.

Liberty Primary School, our school in Nimule, had a relatively uneventful final term with very good results in the end of year exams. This year’s leavers’ class came out of each of their final exams with broad grins and are confident that they will have passed. My plan is for them to join some of last year’s Primary 8 class, who have spent a very good year at King’s College Secondary School, whose headteacher is very happy to accept them. They are among the highest achievers in the secondary school.  The rest of their former classmates are also doing well in their respective schools.

All classes at the school have progressed by and large, with pass rates going up each term. The year ended with an 83% pass rate in the final exams.  Our leavers' class were the best in Nimule in their mocks, which was a major achievement.  We are still awaiting their final exam results.

Aside from academic results, there were two local celebrations, one of World Teachers Day and the other for Girl Child Day. Pupils attended both, but we also held our own Boy Child Day celebration at school. We are the only school to do this.

Boy Child Day football line-up

The reason for celebrating Boy Child Day is that boys are very neglected in Nimule. NGOs, without exception, always focus on girls, leaving boys out completely. This causes a lot of unhappiness among our boys, who are from equally disadvantaged backgrounds. It is common for pupils of both sexes to drop out of school before finishing primary school. In the case of girls, they may be married off by families wanting to receive a bride price, get pregnant or be overwhelmed with too many household responsibilities. In the case of boys, some have to work to help support their families from a very young age. More alarmingly, a lot of disenfranchised boys join gangs who terrorise the local community with their violent behaviour. There has been a particular surge in panga (the local word for a machete) attacks recently. The army and police had a crackdown in which they arrested a lot of these kids and took them to the military barracks. I have been told that at the barracks, many were forcibly recruited to the army, continuing the grim practice of child soldier recruitment. They were removed from Nimule in cattle trucks, destination unknown.

Before our Boy Child Day celebration we consulted the older boys about what they would like to do. This is the second year running that we have had this celebration and they remembered the last one so fondly that they wanted an exact repeat. The unanimous vote was for a football match followed by fizzy drinks and biscuits. As in the previous year, we gave them a talk about issues specific to boys; this time we discussed fatherhood and the right of children to have a father who cares for his family – something most of them do not have. Hopefully they will do things differently when it is their turn. They are so easy to please, and really enjoyed their day. 

Leavers' celebration with teachers and some pupils.

Last year I was completely knocked out by the difficult year so we did not have a leavers’ celebration. This year we did. As with Boy Child Day, we consulted the Primary 8 class who gave us a list of their favourite foods and requested a program with music, dancing and not too many speeches. The teachers contributed by DJ-ing, cooking etc. Everyone enjoyed the event very much.

Newly secured classrooms

We have had two major problems during this school year. The first problem has been resolved to a certain extent (I hope). There has been a complete lack of security at the school. Our school site is unfenced so that people can freely enter it. The buildings are all temporary structures, very easily destroyed by local gangs. As the year went on holes were cut in the papyrus walls of one block and also in the tarpaulin walls of the other block. The original door frames had been poorly constructed and no longer closed, so that it was impossible to secure the classrooms at all. Vandals made a regular habit of coming in and defecating in the classrooms, often on top of the desks. We would find that smaller seats had been removed and left outside. Blackboards were also frequently destroyed. On one occasion we arrived to find blood smeared all over a blackboard, from a dog which the youths had killed. I see a direct co-relation between disaffected youth, envious of those who are able to receive an education, and the targeting of our school. At the end of the school year I consulted a local builder. He has spent a week fixing corrugated metal sheets to the outside of each block and re-fitting the doors so that the classrooms are far more secure than previously.  It isn't pretty, but hopefully will be effective.

The second problem is a lack of school meals. I have not found a solution yet. Up until the end of 2023, we received food from the World Food Program. Unfortunately that support ended due to the various humanitarian crises in Europe, the Middle East and Sudan. Across Nimule this has caused pupils real suffering. Inflation is soaring and many families can only afford to live on one meal a day. This tends to be taken in the evening so that people can sleep without hunger pangs. Therefore the children come to school without breakfast and are really hungry by lunchtime. At other schools, attempts have been made to get the families to supply food, but this has not worked. Instead a lot of pupils have dropped out of school. I know of two schools which have closed down as a result.

In the case of our own school, we dismiss the nursery and lower school pupils at lunchtime, but a lot of upper school pupils leave too, abandoning their afternoon lessons. This obviously has a very detrimental effect of their education. What I would really like to do this coming year is to build a small kitchen, employ a couple of cooks and provide a sustaining porridge at lunchtime, made with either sorghum or millet, which are very nutritious local cereals and would really benefit the children. I am hoping for increased donor support to do this.

The biggest and most important expense for the school, as always, is teacher salaries, and we have always been able to pay our teachers promptly because of your continued generosity. I am wanting to give our teachers a pay increase of 12%, to aid them at this difficult time. That would bring their salaries to around £60 each per month, which is shockingly little in European terms, but seen as a good salary here. Salaries are paid in Ugandan Shillings because it is far more stable than South Sudanese Pounds. This will be their first pay increase for two years, so it is well overdue.

The other big expense is the cost of sending the deaf and blind children to schools in Uganda. This has been going up every year. I have calculated that this year the average cost per pupil was just under £800 for the pupils in Uganda.  I have not included Alau's educational expenses in this, because he is now leaving school.  Once the hearing impairment unit is up and running, we will be able to help more deaf children much more cheaply because there will be no individual school fees. I have already stopped accepting new deaf children due to the expense. The HI Unit will be the first of its kind in the whole country. It is a very big need, as disabled children are completely left out of the South Sudanese education system. Traditional attitudes to disability are very negative and often superstitious (a curse on a family), so that they are sometimes seriously maltreated at home. Some are even killed by their families. There are no legal repercussions.

On my way through Uganda on my way to Entebbe Airport, I visited the Salesians of Don Bosco at their mission in Palabek refugee settlement. They have a very impressive mission covering a variety of educational facilities as well as livelihood training. They have offered me the chance to bring girls who have dropped out of school due to pregnancy for vocational training at their centre, which has a nursery where the babies and toddlers are cared for at the same time. This will be free-of-charge and is a great partnership opportunity which I do not intend to miss!

While I am in England I will be looking into a potential NGO partnership for the Hearing Impairment Unit. I am also going to visit a deaf association where I am hoping for advice on a method of literacy teaching for the deaf, which I think will really help in the new unit. This is because I have seen that literacy is a particular problem for some of my deaf pupils.

Thank you for all your support over this challenging but productive year.  I wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Rebecca Mallinson