Opening the doors of a new school is an anxious time. This is especially so for schools in Uganda, which are mainly privately run – and even more so for Humanist schools opening amid communities where many people have strong religious ties. Over the past two years, UHST has provided funds to ensure that the school has all the classrooms and other essentials it needs: toilets, water, electricity, kitchen and staffrooms. We have also ensured that the site has a protective fence and has gardens and trees to make it a pleasant place to work and learn. Having made the investment, we rely upon the community to support the school by entrusting their children and paying fees. The initial signs at Kanungu are that the school has strong community support, and it is making a very promising start.
Kanungu children learning in the open air
Here is a report of progress from Robert Magara, the school’s Director:
“I kindly report to you that the school has recruited children to all classes from nursery to primary six, Next year our current primary six students will form a P7 class of children preparing for their Primary Leaving Examination.
Kanungu School has 11 well qualified teachers, 2 askaris (security guards) and 2 cooks.
5 Teachers who come from afar stay in houses with rents paid by school.
6 Teachers come from within the community near the school.
They all earn the same salaries apart from the head teacher, director of studies, and deputy head teacher who earn more.
Teachers of primary three, primary four, primary five and primary six carry out remedial teaching at weekends to enable children to catch up on work they missed during the long covid closure. For this extra work the teachers receive an extra 15,000 shillings (£3.20) each week. Our major challenge is to meet the monthly salary bill, which comes to 6,700,000 shillings (£1,440). As our community is poor and has no savings after the Covid lockdowns, total income from local fees falls well short of what we need to cover our costs. For as well as salaries we need to find money for: school meals, learning equipment, books and educational toys and games.
We are recruiting well and already have 120 children in the school. This is a great start.
There are 22 children in our nursery, 15 in P1, 17 in P2, 18 in P3, 11 in P4, 15 in P5 and 22 in P6.
Total number of Boys 54
Total number of Girls 66
We expect enrolment to grow as people realise that we have a well run, well resourced school with high standards of education and welfare. We intend our school to stand out as a happy school.
There are parents who will not send their children to the school, because they prefer schools with boarding facilities. This is something we may need to consider in the longer term but for the moment we will see how things go as a day school.
Our main immediate challenges are to have enough money to keep going. We also must meet requirements identified by school inspectors. At the moment they are putting us under pressure to have a dining room, as at present the children eat while sitting on the school lawns.”
Robert Magara, Director, Kanungu Humanist Primary School
The Mustard Seed Humanist Primary and Secondary Schools are in a very poor area which has become marginal for cultivation due to climate change. Local farmers are now only getting one crop a year, instead of two and even that can fail in a dry year. Family savings have been used up during the covid debacle and they will not have crops to harvest for at least another month.
Families were finding it very difficult to send their children back to school. Many could not afford shoes and they certainly lack money for the other school essentials like uniforms and scholastic materials.
Mustard Seed Children returning to school
After January 10th, when schools reopened, children were drifting back to school very slowly. At the secondary school, which had 600 students before the pandemic, only 140 returned in the first 2 weeks. The new primary school is starting from scratch. Most of the Muslim children who were there before are not being allowed by their parents to join a secular school, though some have. So, a school with a capacity of 400 is operating with 60 children – again others are drifting in slowly.
Moses Kamya, the schools’ Director, approached us for specific help. Moses had the idea that it would help if the school could provide returning and new students with:
– School uniforms
– scholastic materials such as exercise books, pens, mathematical sets, reams of paper, colours, uniforms, calculators,etc.
Providing the requisites to 300 children would cost £2,000. This, he felt, would greatly relieve family finances and enable many more children to return.
UHST funds were stretched but to help us one of our regular supporters agreed to donate the proceeds from his birthday Facebook fundraiser to help meet this challenge.
The success had been almost immediate. Almost 300 extra children have returned to the high school in the past 2 weeks, pushing enrolment towards 450 and there are now 200 in the primary school. The school and children are delighted to have received this really targeted assistance at a critical time.
Mustard Seed School teachers ready for the restart
A BBC team has visited Kanungu Humanist Primary School. They were making a programme for World Service “Africa Eye” TV on the growth of Humanism and the Humanist Schools in Uganda.
Robert Magara showed them around his new school, which has been built near the site of the world’s worst religious cult massacre. Robert enjoyed having an opportunity to tell the world about the Kanungu massacre and his efforts to build a school which welcomed children from all sections of his divided local community to help heal the wounds of a dark past.
BBC team interviewing Robert Magara, Director of Kanungu Humanist School
Here is part of his report:
“The BBC visit for the Kanungu Humanist Primary School opening went very well. On 28th Jan 2022 Friday early in the morning, I warmly welcomed the BBC team: Peter Macjob, Chris Alcock and Steve Ayeny. Also present were Peter Kisirinya and Moses Kamya, representing Uganda Humanist Schools Association. Our school children were extremely happy to be the centre of the world’s attention! It is an event that they and their families will never forget.
BBC reporter Chris Alcock enthusing Kanungu children
The team filmed the school and the children, getting overhead shots using a drone, which caused a lot of excitement. I was interviewed as we walked together around the school. The team observed and spoke with children and teachers in class.
I took them from the school to the cult site. We spent about 5 hours there. I told them what happened in 2000 with the massacre. My friend Gasheka, a neighbour and relative, gave his eyewitness account of the poisoning and burning of 800 villagers in the church, which included his wife, and we visited their mass grave.
When we returned to the school, I was happy to be interviewed and have an opportunity to give my replies to a host of questions, including:
What inspired me to become a humanist?
Why did I start a humanist school in Kanungu in a religious community,
Where did I get the funds to construct a school like this in Kanungu?
Are there other humanist schools in Kanungu?
Will the children become Humanists and will this continue when they leave the primary school?
How do we teach the children. Do we teach religion?
How do we recruit teachers? Are they humanists?
How do we pay teachers? Where do the teachers stay?
Where do I get money to help children who cannot pay fees?
Do I have expectations of big numbers of students in our school?
What makes this a humanist school?
Do I give the students freedom to go to their churches? What of the teachers?
They also, surprisingly, asked me if I was religious?
The resulting discussion took us about 7 hours. I was very pleased to have an opportunity to answer such searching questions. I explained the tremendous support that we have received from Uganda Humanist Schools Trust. Without their help the completion of the school to the present level, would have been impossible. Chris Alcock from the BBC was very happy with their visit and he sent warm messages of appreciation.”
Posted: February 4, 2022 by Steve Hurd
Kanungu School makes flying start
Opening the doors of a new school is an anxious time. This is especially so for schools in Uganda, which are mainly privately run – and even more so for Humanist schools opening amid communities where many people have strong religious ties. Over the past two years, UHST has provided funds to ensure that the school has all the classrooms and other essentials it needs: toilets, water, electricity, kitchen and staffrooms. We have also ensured that the site has a protective fence and has gardens and trees to make it a pleasant place to work and learn. Having made the investment, we rely upon the community to support the school by entrusting their children and paying fees. The initial signs at Kanungu are that the school has strong community support, and it is making a very promising start.
Here is a report of progress from Robert Magara, the school’s Director:
“I kindly report to you that the school has recruited children to all classes from nursery to primary six, Next year our current primary six students will form a P7 class of children preparing for their Primary Leaving Examination.
Kanungu School has 11 well qualified teachers, 2 askaris (security guards) and 2 cooks.
5 Teachers who come from afar stay in houses with rents paid by school.
6 Teachers come from within the community near the school.
They all earn the same salaries apart from the head teacher, director of studies, and deputy head teacher who earn more.
Teachers of primary three, primary four, primary five and primary six carry out remedial teaching at weekends to enable children to catch up on work they missed during the long covid closure. For this extra work the teachers receive an extra 15,000 shillings (£3.20) each week. Our major challenge is to meet the monthly salary bill, which comes to 6,700,000 shillings (£1,440). As our community is poor and has no savings after the Covid lockdowns, total income from local fees falls well short of what we need to cover our costs. For as well as salaries we need to find money for: school meals, learning equipment, books and educational toys and games.
We are recruiting well and already have 120 children in the school. This is a great start.
There are 22 children in our nursery, 15 in P1, 17 in P2, 18 in P3, 11 in P4, 15 in P5 and 22 in P6.
Total number of Boys 54
Total number of Girls 66
We expect enrolment to grow as people realise that we have a well run, well resourced school with high standards of education and welfare. We intend our school to stand out as a happy school.
There are parents who will not send their children to the school, because they prefer schools with boarding facilities. This is something we may need to consider in the longer term but for the moment we will see how things go as a day school.
Our main immediate challenges are to have enough money to keep going. We also must meet requirements identified by school inspectors. At the moment they are putting us under pressure to have a dining room, as at present the children eat while sitting on the school lawns.”
Robert Magara, Director, Kanungu Humanist Primary School
Posted: February 3, 2022 by Steve Hurd
School recruitment crisis averted
The Mustard Seed Humanist Primary and Secondary Schools are in a very poor area which has become marginal for cultivation due to climate change. Local farmers are now only getting one crop a year, instead of two and even that can fail in a dry year. Family savings have been used up during the covid debacle and they will not have crops to harvest for at least another month.
Families were finding it very difficult to send their children back to school. Many could not afford shoes and they certainly lack money for the other school essentials like uniforms and scholastic materials.
After January 10th, when schools reopened, children were drifting back to school very slowly. At the secondary school, which had 600 students before the pandemic, only 140 returned in the first 2 weeks. The new primary school is starting from scratch. Most of the Muslim children who were there before are not being allowed by their parents to join a secular school, though some have. So, a school with a capacity of 400 is operating with 60 children – again others are drifting in slowly.
Moses Kamya, the schools’ Director, approached us for specific help. Moses had the idea that it would help if the school could provide returning and new students with:
– School uniforms
– scholastic materials such as exercise books, pens, mathematical sets, reams of paper, colours, uniforms, calculators,etc.
Providing the requisites to 300 children would cost £2,000. This, he felt, would greatly relieve family finances and enable many more children to return.
UHST funds were stretched but to help us one of our regular supporters agreed to donate the proceeds from his birthday Facebook fundraiser to help meet this challenge.
The success had been almost immediate. Almost 300 extra children have returned to the high school in the past 2 weeks, pushing enrolment towards 450 and there are now 200 in the primary school. The school and children are delighted to have received this really targeted assistance at a critical time.
Posted: February 2, 2022 by Steve Hurd
BBC Film Crew visits Kanungu
A BBC team has visited Kanungu Humanist Primary School. They were making a programme for World Service “Africa Eye” TV on the growth of Humanism and the Humanist Schools in Uganda.
Robert Magara showed them around his new school, which has been built near the site of the world’s worst religious cult massacre. Robert enjoyed having an opportunity to tell the world about the Kanungu massacre and his efforts to build a school which welcomed children from all sections of his divided local community to help heal the wounds of a dark past.
Here is part of his report:
“The BBC visit for the Kanungu Humanist Primary School opening went very well. On 28th Jan 2022 Friday early in the morning, I warmly welcomed the BBC team: Peter Macjob, Chris Alcock and Steve Ayeny. Also present were Peter Kisirinya and Moses Kamya, representing Uganda Humanist Schools Association. Our school children were extremely happy to be the centre of the world’s attention! It is an event that they and their families will never forget.
The team filmed the school and the children, getting overhead shots using a drone, which caused a lot of excitement. I was interviewed as we walked together around the school. The team observed and spoke with children and teachers in class.
I took them from the school to the cult site. We spent about 5 hours there. I told them what happened in 2000 with the massacre. My friend Gasheka, a neighbour and relative, gave his eyewitness account of the poisoning and burning of 800 villagers in the church, which included his wife, and we visited their mass grave.
When we returned to the school, I was happy to be interviewed and have an opportunity to give my replies to a host of questions, including:
The resulting discussion took us about 7 hours. I was very pleased to have an opportunity to answer such searching questions. I explained the tremendous support that we have received from Uganda Humanist Schools Trust. Without their help the completion of the school to the present level, would have been impossible. Chris Alcock from the BBC was very happy with their visit and he sent warm messages of appreciation.”