Members of Isaac Newton Humanist Club have been taking advantage of the latest ChatGPT AI to design attractive posters about Humanism, the work of the Club and the contribution made by supporters of Uganda Humanist Schools Trust.

Boy and girl scouts from Katumba Parents’ Primary School have just returned from the experience of a lifetime. A UHST Trustee paid for Juma Siriwayo, the school director, to take them on a 12-hour journey from their homes near the Congo border to the national scout camp near Entebbe on Lake Victoria in Central Uganda. Hitherto, most of the children had travelled no more than 7 miles from home to the nearest town of Bundibugyo. The letter of thanks from Juma to the donor shows how this experience would stand out as a memorable highlight in the lives of the fortunate children.

I am writing on behalf of the management, Scouts, parents, and entire Katumba Parents Humanist Nursery and Primary School community to express our deepest and most sincere appreciation for your generous financial support that enabled our Scouts to participate in the 2026 National Scouts Camp at Kaazi National Scouts Headquarters/Camping and Training Centre, on the shores of Lake Victoria, from 23rd to 28th August 2026.

Thank you for believing in our children and providing an opportunity that has given them memories, knowledge, skills, confidence, and friendships that will stay with them for many years to come.

A Historic Achievement for Bundibugyo

This camp was particularly significant because for the first time in 11 years Bundibugyo District was represented at the National Scouts Camp and training event.

Katumba Humanist School was proud to carry the flag of Bundibugyo and demonstrate that children from our rural communities deserve the same opportunities for learning, leadership, exploration, and personal development as children anywhere in Uganda.

Our boy and girls scouts joined approximately 6,800 scouts from 61 schools across Uganda, creating an extraordinary environment of learning, cultural exchange, teamwork, leadership, and friendship.

What Your Support Made Possible

Because of your support, our young Scouts were able to experience far more than simply attending a camp.

They acquired:

• New practical knowledge and life skills
• Greater confidence and independence
• Leadership and teamwork skills
• New friendships with Scouts from different parts of Uganda and beyond
• Exposure to new cultures, communities, and ideas
• Practical experiences in camping and outdoor activities
• A deeper appreciation of nature and environmental responsibility
• Memorable experiences around Lake Victoria and the fishing community
• The opportunity to learn through interaction, observation, participation, and sharing

Our Scouts returned home with stories of their own to tell. They are eager to share what they learned with their fellow pupils, parents, teachers, and other young people in Bundibugyo.

For many of them, travelling from the foothills of the Rwenzori Mountains to the shores of Lake Victoria was itself an important educational experience. Seeing a different part of Uganda, meeting young people from different backgrounds, and participating in activities they had never experienced before has broadened their understanding of the world around them.

Recognition and Certificates

We are delighted to report that Katumba Parents Humanist Nursery and Primary School received a Certificate of Participation, recognizing our school’s participation in the National Scouts Camp. Each of our individual scouts received a certificate, giving them a tangible reminder of their achievement and encouraging them to continue developing their leadership and service to their community. These certificates mean much more than pieces of paper. For our children, they represent achievement, recognition, courage, exposure, and the belief that their dreams and abilities matter.

Your Support Has Created a Ripple Effect

Your contribution has reached far beyond the immediate cost of sending Scouts to camp. You helped create an opportunity for children who might otherwise never have had the chance to participate in such a national event. The delight is evident from the words of one of our children:: “I was there. I participated. I learned. I made friends. I can do this.” That confidence is priceless.

We believe the knowledge and experiences gained at Kaazi will continue to spread through our school and community as the scouts share what they learned with other children.

Looking Ahead

The experience has inspired us to think bigger.

Our young scouts now have considerable knowledge and experience that they would love to share with other Humanist school scout clubs in the Rwenzori region.

If resources and circumstances permit, we hope to organize a Humanist Schools Scouts Regional Camp in the Rwenzori Region, possibly in Kasese, bringing together young scouts from Humanist schools and other interested schools for leadership development, outdoor learning, environmental awareness, peacebuilding, friendship, and community service.The scouts who attended Kaazi could become some of the young leaders helping to organize and mentor others at such an event. Your support has therefore not only helped us attend a camp—it may have planted the seed for a much larger scouts movement among young people in the Rwenzori Region.

Thank You, Our Hero

Words cannot fully express our gratitude.Thank you for standing behind our children. Thank you for giving them an opportunity to see beyond their immediate surroundings. Thank you for helping them discover new abilities, meet new friends, gain new skills, and believe in themselves. Your kindness has made a real and visible difference.

Please accept our deepest appreciation on behalf of the Katumba Humanist School Scouts, their parents, teachers, school management, and the wider Bundibugyo community. You invested in our children, and they returned home richer in knowledge, experience, friendship, confidence, and hope. With heartfelt gratitude and appreciation,

Irumba Juma Siriwayo
Managing Director, Katumba Parents’ Humanist Primary School

Apart from the constant challenge of raising money to pay staff salaries and food bills, the biggest headache for Ugandan schools is sourcing timber for cooking. The time and cost of securing regular supplies of wood fuel are immense. What is more, cooking with firewood has serious health and environmental consequences. 

The number of children to be catered for in the Humanist schools is large, ranging from just under 200 at Kasese Municipal High School, to around 250 at each of the 3 Kasese primary schools, 280 at Kanungu, 480 at Eagle’s View and 680 at Katumba primaries, with a further 450 in the primary school and over 800 in the high school at Isaac Newton. Boarders range from 15% at Katumba Primary to over 90% at Isaac Newton High School. Preparing meals for such large numbers is a logistical challenge. Substantial quantities of raw food ingredients, wood fuel and water must be harnessed to ensure that meals are available 7 days a week. Day students are provided with breakfast of maize-flour porridge and lunch, typically comprising posho (a maize mash) and beans. Additionally, boarding students require a substantial evening meal. 

Delivering meals in a timely fashion has become more difficult as the schools have grown. The traditional cooking method, using a large pot resting on 3 stones over an open fire, is slow and inefficient. Using funds donated by UHST supporters our schools have gradually replaced open-fires with wood-burning stoves. This has reduced firewood consumption by up to one-third. As well as saving money it has reduced the schools’ impact on the environment and provided clean, less smoky conditions for cooks. However, even with well-designed stoves, wood use was still high, with Isaac Newton High School still requiring 14 lorry loads of timber each term at a cost of around £1,200.

Due to growing deforestation in Uganda, sourcing timber has becoming more difficult. Schools face higher transport costs as they bring wood from more distant locations. Pressure on dwindling forest reserves has meant that suppliers rarely have time to leave wood to dry adequately before sale. They are under pressure to supply newly felled, green timber, which burns less well and generates less heat. It also burns with more smoke which endangers the health of school cooks.

UHST is always on the lookout for cost-effective ways to reduce or eliminate wood burning. As Uganda generates abundant clean electricity from hydroelectric power plants on the River Nile, renewable electricity would appear to be the obvious answer. However, there are substantial snags. We have failed to find electric stoves that can heat the huge cooking pots used by schools. Furthermore, as the demand for electricity in Uganda’s growing economy is now outstripping supply, power cuts are a fact of daily life. Consequently, electricity has become an unreliable energy source for school cooking. 

In recent years UHST has explored several supposedly sustainable alternatives to wood burning. An engineer from a U.S. university approached us with a Top Loading UpDraft (TLUD) Stove that burnt agricultural waste (corn cobs). However, the stove was still polluting, and no feasible way could be found to scale it up to meet the cooking needs of a school. A group of engineers at the University of Upsala in Sweden examined for us the feasibility of scaling up a new solar technology they had developed for cooking. Their prototype was capable of cooking for groups of up to 20 or 30, but they could find no way to scale it up to cook for several hundred children and staff.

When we examined the cooking process in detail it was evident that much of the energy is used to raise the temperature of water before the cooking process could start. In Uganda, which sits astride the equator, using the sun to pre-heat water before use in cooking seemed to be worth a try. Earlier this year, as a trial we installed a roof-top solar-water heater at Isaac Newton High School. Being on the equator, most afternoons the hot ground promotes rising air and cloud formation, which cuts out insolation. However, there is usually sufficient sunshine in the mornings to enable a solar heater to raise the temperature of water to 80^oC or more. This pre-heated water is being hose-piped directly into cooking pots on wood-burning stoves, which then undertake the cooking process (see picture). 

The solar-water heater has been hugely cost-effective. It cost £900 to install. The ready “free” supply of pre- heated water reduced firewood use from 14 lorry loads to between 9 or 10 loads in the first term – a saving to the school of £300. So, cost savings over 3 terms easily repay the capital cost of the heater within a year. Not only are solar heaters cost-effective, they bring additional health and environmental benefits by reducing wood burning.

Our objective now is to install a solar water heater at each of the remaining 7 school sites, at a cost of £900 per school. We hope that different local Humanist groups and other Humanist friends might respond to the challenge of installing a solar-water heater in each of the schools. If we succeed it will substantially reduce school outgoings and make them more sustainable financially and environmentally.