A Letter from Betty Wasswa
I greet you in the name of our lord Jesus Christ and hope this finds you well as we continue serving and fulfilling the Lord’s work. Allow me to pass my sincere gratitude as I appreciate the support and sponsorship that you have given to Hands4Uganda for Rock of Ages School.
May the Lord richly bless you. Webale Nnyo and Mukama akuwe O’mukisa
At the beginning of this year i.e. January 10th 2022, the government officially opened schools. It was joyful and exciting but the road wasn’t smooth. With your prayers and support, we have pushed and came to the end of the first Trimester.
Among the various things that have transpired in this term, below are the challenges and how we have managed to cover and work around them with a way forward.
First and foremost, there was a loss of interest in education. Depending on most of the learners’ settings, the community where they live, one could say it takes courage for a child to stay home and not indulge in peer pressure. The prolonged stay out of school led to formation of many groups which didn’t have a good influence on young children and some lost the love for being in school and didn’t want to return.
This also came about when learners outgrew their classes after two years of staying home. Some students felt they were too big for some classes considering their body sizes and had to be convinced and counseled to be in those respective grade levels.
There is also a challenge of increased prices in the market for most of the scholastic and food items that are key to the feeding of the learners at the school. There is fluctuation of food prices which has also been a challenge to the school as we try to sustain on the amount of funding that has until this point been enough for support.
During the Covid -19 lockdown period, most of the parents lost their jobs and resorted to personal small businesses (i.e. selling vegetables or second hand goods). This made most of them move to places that are cheap in terms of renting, yet they want their children to still attend Rock of Ages. The quickest and cheapest means of transport is boda-boda which in turn is the most dangerous and not recommended for ferrying school children. In that way we greatly fear we may lose many learners. We have realized there is a great need for a school bus to help maintain the children who turn out to be coming from farther than walking distance.
Despite all the challenges we have encountered, there’s hope that we can change the trend or improve on to get the triumphs that are best needed.
As a school we have mobilized and started career guidance and counseling sessions that help motivate and inspire learners to actively stay in schools. We have a program that is family based with the purpose of mentoring learners with the parent’s love and participation in education.
We are adjusting and empowering our learners to a holistic education whereby we are skilling all the learners for a better and complete education to run concurrently with the national curriculum and among these are:
- Engaging in many activities that help discover children’s talents and potential in sports activities, although this calls for a complete sports facilities and attire which we are currently lacking.
- We have participated in wood ball where we qualified for the National championship due to take place in June in Kampala.
- Gearing up for soccer in term 2. Training is to start in the holidays (May).
- In athletics some learners have qualified for the district championships!
We are integrating our learners in income generating activities that will help in ensuring that they have skills to support their families and among these are:
- Tailoring
- Baking and cookery
- Hair plaiting
- Farming and animal rearing training
- Further we hope to one day introduce computer studies, financial literacy and saving when we have the means for these materials
While we have a long way to go, we have come so far. Once again we do appreciate all our dear Sponsors for the support.
May the almighty bless you,
Betty Wasswa