It is with great joy we update you today on the progress of the latest major improvement to our rural Uganda boarding high school. For several years our students have had to live in make-shift boarding arrangements, sharing space between the one official dormitory and an improvised hall of our on-campus medical clinic.
Finally, after getting through several Covid lockdown restrictions and setbacks, along with delays of supplies due to an intense fall rainy season, we’ve begun construction!
The new dormitory will comfortably house 175 students, bringing our total official capacity up to 350 boarding students. Our high school aims to equip at-risk students with all they need to conquer the many challenges of being a young person in Ugandan society, thus our Uganda director aptly named the school, “Conquerors High School.”
Our native team officially inaugurated the high school at our main campus in 2007 where we have since enrolled well over 1,000 students, with nearly the same amount of students graduating to receive their high school diploma. We have also employed over 80 teachers and 30 other staff members at the high school. Our local team has included orphan care as a key focus at the boarding school, and thus during the past 12 years, we have provided complete residential care for over 600 impoverished orphans.
Students enrolled at our high school are studying math, English, geography, history, commerce, physics, chemistry, biology, fine art, economics, agriculture, computer studies, and their native language of Swahili.
Currently, classes remain adjourned due to the lingering effects of the Covid pandemic, but plans are underway to fully relaunch the school in January, aligning with the start of the Ugandan schoolyear.
Metropolitan International University in Kampala has generously partnered with our high school to give eligible students an opportunity to attend the university who would otherwise have no means to do so. Metropolitan International is waiving all the tuition fees for our students who have graduated with good scores. These qualifying students only have to pay the administrative and registration fees which are approximately only $500 for the whole year, and they can take any course that pertains to the college degree they are interested in pursuing.
Our field director reports: “We had a number of students who had completed our high school but had no way of joining the universities because all the other universities asked for too much money. This is a big opportunity for our students. It is when students are able to join into professional courses of their choices that they realize the meaning of education.”
We have many other improvements slated for our campus thanks to your generous response to our Uganda education fundraiser this past summer. Due to Covid and other challenges in Uganda, we have been delayed in carrying out the plans as quickly as we had hoped, but we are so happy that today we can show you our progress on the largest component of the plan.
Our 100 orphans living on campus, along with our staff, are overjoyed at the sight of the long-awaited new dormitory going up on campus. We are excited to bring you more news soon on our next steps to improve our education programs: new computers for the computer lab, structural improvements to our primary school campus as well as new desks for the students, and a new irrigation system for the farmland that helps to feed all our students. All made possible by your generosity.
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