UHST offered all the Senior 1, 2, 3 and 5 sponsored students who were attending Mustard Seed Secondary School last year an opportunity to transfer their scholarships to one of the other UHST secondary schools, as we could no longer support Mustard Seed. We are delighted that 33 out of 45 accepted the offer.
We are very grateful to Peter Kisiringa, the Director of Isaac Newton High School, for agreeing to take the students and to organise the necessary logistics.
The first task was to prepare places for the students to sleep. There was space for the boys in existing school dormitories, but a two roomed extension to the girls’ dormitories required plastering and painting. This work on the girls’ rooms is underway in the picture below.
We were not sure how many Mustard Seed students would take up the opportunity so we worked on the assumption that 20 would transfer, and 10 additional double bunk beds were made. When we learned that even more Busoga parents wanted their children to take up the opportunity, work started on the construction of 6 more bunk beds.
The next logistical problem was how to transport 33 scholarship students from Kamuli to Masaka – a journey of 240km taking over 6 hours. Isaac Newton commissioned two small coaches to pick up the children from the campus of Eagle’s View School near Buwenge. Return travel will be arranged each term for the students for the remainder of their schooling.
As they will be boarding at Isaac Newton they needed to come with their own mattresses, sheets and blankets as well as their clothes and other personal possessions. In the following picture, these items are being loaded into one of the two buses.
Screenshot
The next picture was taken by Dan Kasanda (centre) inside the second coach. Dan is UHST’s auditor in Uganda and did what he could to stabilise the administration of Mustard Seed School in 2025. Since the failure of the school, Dan has worked hard to facilitate the movement of scholarship children to their new school.
Screenshot
The journey from Kamuli to Masaka was, for most of the children, the longest journey they had made in their lives. Having spent their lives on smallholders farms, most had travelled no further than the nearest trading centre where their produce was taken to market. On this journey their eyes were opened to a new world. Along the way to Isaac Newton they will have seen:
The mighty River Nile emerging from Lake Victoria
The Owen Falls hydro-electric dam
Nile breweries – the largest beer factory in Uganda, which draws water from the Nile
Mabira Forest – one of the last remaining areas of virgin equatorial forest
The skyscrapers and motorways of Kampala, the capital city
The Equator as they crossed from the Northern to the Southern Hemisphere
The green forested landscape near Isaac Newton which has much more rain than Busoga.
They arrived at Isaac Newton, accompanied by the Mustard Seed bursar, Moreen Athieno, who had been unfairly dismissed. Moreen will now take her accounting skills to the Isaac Newton Primary School, where she will serve as the school bursar. The following picture shows Mustard Seed children on arrival at Isaac Newton School. Peter Kisirinya, the school’s Director (in the middle at the back) was there to welcome them.
Screenshot
Peter and his staff are looking forward to making their guests feel at home in their new setting. The children will need to adapt to the local language around Isaac Newton School, Luganda. It is in the same language class at their home language, Lusoga, but there are differences in accent and in some vocabulary. Fortunately, the language of instruction, English, will be the same as in their old school. Isaac Newton School has a proud history of welcoming students from other parts of Uganda. For some years there has been a steady flow of students from Kasese Humanist Primary and Katumba Parents Humanist Primary Schools in the extreme west of Uganda. All have been welcomed and quickly assimilated into the life of the school.
Lifeline for Mustard Seed students
Posted: February 10, 2026 by Steve Hurd
UHST offered all the Senior 1, 2, 3 and 5 sponsored students who were attending Mustard Seed Secondary School last year an opportunity to transfer their scholarships to one of the other UHST secondary schools, as we could no longer support Mustard Seed. We are delighted that 33 out of 45 accepted the offer.
We are very grateful to Peter Kisiringa, the Director of Isaac Newton High School, for agreeing to take the students and to organise the necessary logistics.
The first task was to prepare places for the students to sleep. There was space for the boys in existing school dormitories, but a two roomed extension to the girls’ dormitories required plastering and painting. This work on the girls’ rooms is underway in the picture below.
We were not sure how many Mustard Seed students would take up the opportunity so we worked on the assumption that 20 would transfer, and 10 additional double bunk beds were made. When we learned that even more Busoga parents wanted their children to take up the opportunity, work started on the construction of 6 more bunk beds.
The next logistical problem was how to transport 33 scholarship students from Kamuli to Masaka – a journey of 240km taking over 6 hours. Isaac Newton commissioned two small coaches to pick up the children from the campus of Eagle’s View School near Buwenge. Return travel will be arranged each term for the students for the remainder of their schooling.
As they will be boarding at Isaac Newton they needed to come with their own mattresses, sheets and blankets as well as their clothes and other personal possessions. In the following picture, these items are being loaded into one of the two buses.
The next picture was taken by Dan Kasanda (centre) inside the second coach. Dan is UHST’s auditor in Uganda and did what he could to stabilise the administration of Mustard Seed School in 2025. Since the failure of the school, Dan has worked hard to facilitate the movement of scholarship children to their new school.
The journey from Kamuli to Masaka was, for most of the children, the longest journey they had made in their lives. Having spent their lives on smallholders farms, most had travelled no further than the nearest trading centre where their produce was taken to market. On this journey their eyes were opened to a new world. Along the way to Isaac Newton they will have seen:
They arrived at Isaac Newton, accompanied by the Mustard Seed bursar, Moreen Athieno, who had been unfairly dismissed. Moreen will now take her accounting skills to the Isaac Newton Primary School, where she will serve as the school bursar. The following picture shows Mustard Seed children on arrival at Isaac Newton School. Peter Kisirinya, the school’s Director (in the middle at the back) was there to welcome them.
Peter and his staff are looking forward to making their guests feel at home in their new setting. The children will need to adapt to the local language around Isaac Newton School, Luganda. It is in the same language class at their home language, Lusoga, but there are differences in accent and in some vocabulary. Fortunately, the language of instruction, English, will be the same as in their old school. Isaac Newton School has a proud history of welcoming students from other parts of Uganda. For some years there has been a steady flow of students from Kasese Humanist Primary and Katumba Parents Humanist Primary Schools in the extreme west of Uganda. All have been welcomed and quickly assimilated into the life of the school.
Category: News