In 2014 UHST supporters have provided scholarships for 126 children at the Humanist schools in Uganda. This is the largest number we have been able to offer in a year. The scholarships enable bright children in difficult circumstances  to have the opportunity of secondary education.They cover school fees, uniform and school food.

The schools in Uganda advertise the scholarships by leafleting families in villages around their schools, through local primary schools and on local radio. Applicants are screened on the basis of their results in the primary leaving certificate and personal circumstances. Shortlisted children are invited to visit the schools with family members or guardians – many children have lost one or both parents and are being cared for by other members of the family, often grandparents, and sometimes by completely unrelated friends of the family who have taken them in after the loss of parents. The photograph shows a meeting with family members and guardians at Mustard Seed School in February.

Since Isaac Newton High School, Masaka and Mustard Seed School, Busota now have girls hostels we have introduced, in 2014, boarding scholarships at the rate of £300 a year. They cover tuition fees, boarding and food, medical care, uniforms and out of hours supervision and activities. They are suited to very needy students who have lost both parents or who have particularly difficult home circumstances. United States sponsors have provided 8 boarding scholarships specifically for orphan girl students, 6 for Isaac Newton School and 2 for Mustard Seed. A UK supporter is providing similar support to two orphan girls boarding at Mustard Seed School. Such scholarships provide an opportunity for children in pretty hopeless circumstances to transform their life chances.

A Mustard Seed scholarship has been allocated to a 13 year old boy called Sowedi. He is an orphan who has lost both his parents. Sowedi is being looked after by his grand father who makes a meagre living selling used clothes in rural markets. Before the opportunity of a scholarship was presented, the grand father had decided that Sowedi would have to find something else to do instead of school since there was no money for school fees. However, Moses Kamya, the School Director, could see that Sowedi was a bright boy with ambition and offered him a place at Mustard Seed School. Sowedi is relishing every moment at the school.

In 2014 42 scholarships were allocated to Isaac Newton High School, Masaka. This includes 2 for the two highest achieving pupils from Kasese Humanist Primary School. Isaac Newton High School, Mpigi, which has no hostel facilities, has been awarded 38 day scholarships. Finally, Mustard Seed School has 46 scholarships.The scholarship programme, while helping children in need, has also, by being selective, helped to raise the quality of students entering the school for the past two years. This should result over time in a progressive improvement in overall school outcomes.

If you would like to help students like Sowdi then please consider providing a day scholarship (£120 a year) or a boarding scholarship (£300 a year). For further information email: Hilary Hurd at scholarships@uhst.org (tel. +44 (0) 1782 750338).

Our first priority at the beginning of each year is to increase the stock of books in the Humanist schools.

In February UHST allocated £2,800 to the accounts of the schools at Aristoc bookshop in Kampala. The two Isaac Newton Schools and Mustard Seed Secondary School were each allocated £800 and Kasese Humanist Primary School £400.

The photograph shows some of the new books chosen by Isaac Newton School, Masaka.  The libraries at Issac Newton School, Mpigi and Mustard Seed School have been similarly augmented.

In a recent email Moses Kamya, the Director of Mustard Seed School, wrote: “Yesterday we selected and transported text books from Aristoc bookshop in Kampala. Students were delighted to receive them. This will allow them to support their lessons with reading with the expectation of better grades. One student named Nicholas Tamuzade of S3 commented in response to receiving the text books that, “I can now be 100% sure of making a first grade come next year with these new text books, congratulations master“. We are making all efforts to enable the children to love reading on their own to supplement teachers’ notes. Attached is a picture of the librarian, m/s Jamira working with students to place the books in the newly refurbished book shelves in the library.” Encouraging students to become independent learners is an important objective of the Humanist schools. Book rich learning empowers students to think for themselves and to show respect for evidence.

The Humanist Schools in Uganda have received substantial support from two U.S. Humanist organisations.

KidsHeartKids, a charity established by Mario Mouton, his wife and their 7 year old daughter Lylah, set out in November to raise money for the Humanist Schools. They created a website, a FaceBook page and initiated a number of very successful fundraising activities. The following message from Mario sets out the extent of the support they have been able to send to the schools.

“We have raised enough to Sponsor two students for four years at Isaac Newton School, Masaka.  We have also collected around $500 in quality drawing pencils, charcoals, pastels, and watercolor pencils for the school. (The photograph shows the staff and students opening up the box of art materials.)

We were also able to help Kasese Humanist Primary School as well. We shipped two electric school bells, established a penpal program, and were able to ship several hundred dollars in arts and crafts supplies and educational software.

We look forward to doing more in 2014 and consider this year to be successful as we started collections on top of Lylah’s savings late in the year.

Thank You
Mario Mouton-KidsHeartKids”

Ethical Society of St Louis has also raised a substantial amount of money for Isaac Newton High School and Mustard Seed School. This follows a visit to Uganda last year by Ed Schmidt and a colleague, who met with Peter Kisirinya and Steve and Hilary Hurd and squeezed a visit to Isaac Newton High School into a very busy schedule. Ed and Ethical Society leader Kate Lovelady have been very successful in mobilising individual members of his organisation to support the scholarship scheme for students at the schools. Here is the latest message from Ed:

“Ethical Society of St Louis is to sponsor 7 girls for 4 years at full board.  We have 5 donations of $480, with commitments from four of those “giving units” (a single person, two couples, and two couples together) to continue each year for 4 years.  Not sure whether the 4th donor couple is committed for 3 more years, but if not we will cover.  In addition we have collected about $2000 in smaller donations.  As I mentioned earlier, we are thinking of this as the first two years for two girls, and we will ask for more donations as this amount runs out.

We’d like the scholarships all to go to girls  starting in Senior 1.  The distribution to be 5 to Isaac Newton and the two remaining scholarships to go to Mustard Seed School.

Cheers

Ed”

The schools are in the process of recruiting their new intake of students. As soon as we receive information, my wife, Hilary, who takes care of our scholarship programme will send details of the students and their photographs to the new sponsors. These two initiatives are a real boost to confidence in the Humanist Schools in Uganda. Given the difficult political conditions in Uganda, the schools particularly welcome this show of support from friends around the world at the present time.