This summer I was lucky enough to visit and photograph the Isaac Newton and Mustard Seed Schools, as part of the International Friendship Visit. I first photographed the schools five years ago, and I was excited to see the differences. They weren’t subtle! Both schools had more buildings and pupils, and were buzzing with activity. It was lovely to see. The full album is here.
The Isaac Newton School has an amazing new medical centre, more equipment, and far more buildings:
Isaac Newton School in 2010Isaac Newton School in 2015Isaac Newton’s new medical centreScience equipment at Isaac Newton School
The Mustard Seed School has far better cooking facilities, easily accessible running water, and a girls dormitory.
New dormitory building at Mustard SeedInside the new dormitoryNew cooking facilities at Mustard Seed
The children seemed more confident, too.
Some of the kids even asked me not to take their picture! This was a bit unexpected, but a good sign – they knew I was part of a visit from people who help fund the schools, but despite that they were still confident enough to assert themselves.
You can find the full gallery of photos here. We’ll be sending copies over to the schools for the kids to share.
Towards the end of our recent trip to Uganda Hilary and I made an overnight stay in Kasese, where we met up with the three Humanist School Directors, Moses Kamya (Mustard Seed), Peter Kisirinya (Isaac Newton) and Robert Bwanbale (Kasese Primary) and other senior teachers from Kasese.
In this first phase of the Humanist Ethos Project the Directors are introducing each other to their schools in a succession of project meetings. The aim is for everyone to get to know the staff of each school, to examine their facilities and compare how they present Humanism within them. At Kasese we held a formal meeting of the project, where the Directors and staff discussed the appropriate rules for a Humanist Schools and procedures based upon guidance rather than violence.
School sign
We began by meeting Robert’s fellow members of Kasese United Humanist Association. The body responsible for starting the school. And we were taken on a tour of the facilities and heard Robert express his vision for the development of the school complex. We saw the original school site, housed in the old East African Railways terminus buildings, which has 7 classes from P1 to P7, with two small nursery classes. As we went into each class the students welcomed us in English, which is used as the medium of instruction from the nursery stage as the school believes that excellence in English is the key to success in life. The school choir sang the school anthem:
Kasese Humanist School!
You are the home for our future
Surely, we shall rest in you
The value of education shall for ever shine!
We students of Kasese Humanist realise the value of Humanism. The principles of a global rational world forces the sun to glitter and shine.
Thanks to the founders for your planning, teachers and parents for your devotion.
Our motto will ever be:
With science we can progress.
Followed by another song where the children proclaimed how they were “happy to be born again in Humanism”.
Children at Rukoki campus
We moved on to the second school site at Rukoki, to the north of the town centre. This site has new, purpose built classrooms of a high standard. As with the other site it offers classes from P1 through to P7 and 3 reception classes, which took children as young as 3 and 4 years old. We introduced ourselves to every class before being shown around the extensive site which borders a fast flowing melt water river running down from the Ruwenzori Mountains (the fabled Mountains of the Moon) which form the border with Congo.
Our next move was south of the town to see the site of the new BiZoHa orphanage building. Built with support from U.S. Humanists and Atheists the building, when complete, will house 16 girls, in two rooms of 8, looked after by a house mother. Robert has also built a single classroom on the site and his hope is to expand to create a third primary school and ultimately a secondary school into which the three Humanist primary school can feed. There are plans for two guest houses to accommodate a regular flow of visitors from the U.S. and elsewhere and Robert has an ambitious plan to build a safari lodge to take advantage of a location close to Queen Elizabeth National Park. His hope is that income from this and other commercial ventures will help to subsidise the schools.
Visitors on river boundary
Details of the Humanist Ethos meeting we held during the visit to Kasese can be read on the new Uganda Humanist Schools Association website. We were impressed by what we saw of the school. The children were happy with their teachers and there was a good learning culture. It is clear that Robert has a policy of inducting the teachers into Humanism using the Principles from the 2002 Amsterdam Declaration on International Humanism. Several young teachers said they have been happy to embrace the principles and become humanists and to let Humanism and the search for truth to influence their teaching.
Uganda Humanist Schools Trust needs to understand more about the legal status of the school before providing significant support. However, for the time being, we are very happy with what we have seen and are willing to provide funds for much needed books and other learning resources. We look forward to a fruitful long-term relationship with the school, which is a full member of the Uganda Humanist Schools Association.
The visiting team for the 2015 International Friendship Visit to the Humanist Schools in Uganda comprised: Steve and Hilary Hurd (UHST), Andrew West (BHA/UHST), Trisha Rogers (Vice-Chair BHA), Ed Schmidt (Chair, Ethical Society of St. Louis) and Peter Furness (Director, Australia Humanist Aid). The picture shows the group as we crossed the Equator.
We were warmly welcomed at both Mustard Seed and Isaac Newton Schools and took part in a range of teaching and other activities at the schools. Here is a link to the Friendship Week Programme.
The students as always were a delight to be with. They are enthusiastic and attentive and we were all struck by the happy and purposeful atmosphere of both schools.
After touring each school we could all see what huge progress they have made in recent years. The infrastructure has greatly expanded and it is difficult to imagine that both schools started 8 or 9 years ago with a single classroom.
The students treated us to a lively music and dance performance. At Isaac Newton School, the students performed a version of a traditional dance that was used historically at circumcision ceremonies. It should be noted that the boys in each school have been participating in a national programme of circumcision, which is one element of Uganda’s successful campaign to combat HIV/AIDS.
Hilary with Mustard Seed girls
Hilary gave two talks to bring to the school the latest knowledge on what causes the symptoms of malaria and the latest scientific methods to stop its transmission. Steve gave talks on climate change, the economics of energy markets and set up a debate on urban rural migration. The students are accomplished debaters and follow a strict format with chairperson, time-keeper, critic and adjudicator. Perhaps, somewhat surprisingly given the rural location of each school, both sets of students rejected the motion that “This house believes that the Uganda Government should spend less money on congested cities and more on rural areas”. This perhaps reflects the aspirations of many of the students to move to the towns and cities for jobs once they complete their education.
Ed and Trisha ran a series of lessons to get the students to think more deeply about the nature of mathematics and why they were studying it. Trisha, an experienced mathematics curriculum developer and researcher, spent time with the teachers in each school running a workshop on new developments in mathematics teaching. Ed conducted a fascinating demonstration of pendulum swings using chains of students making wave motions.
Girl debating rural development
Although the schools are run by Humanists most students and, indeed teachers, are religious believers, mainly from different Christian churches but also a proportion of Moslems. It is quite a challenge to prepare a talk on Humanism in this setting, but Steve, with support from Peter, did precisely this by presenting Humanism according to the 2002 Amsterdam Declaration principles as a set of beliefs that can be embraced by all. It clearly worked as many students and teachers said afterwards that, although they had not realised before, they are happy to embrace Humanism. In fact so positive was the response that the meeting ended with the setting up of new Humanist Society at Isaac Newton School with the intention of helping less fortunate people in the villages around the school and providing a forum for the discussion and debate of pressing issues facing their communities and humankind in general.
Andrew by the River Nile
Andrew was every present as group photographer. He was pursued by students throughout, who all wanted him to take photographs of them with their friends. He took so many stunning photographs and we are planning to place a link to them on the website.
The visit ended with the presentation of re-usable sanitary pads to the girl students by Afripads. This started as an initiative of Central London Humanists and we have co-funded the provision of pads with them for the past two years. On our last day in Masaka we were taken on a tour of two of the Afripad factories (this will be the subject of a separate blog).
At the end of the various activities were were all sad to leave the schools. If you think you might like to join a future visit to the schools please let me know at stevehurd@uhst.org.
Posted: October 11, 2015 by Andrew West
Photos of the schools in summer 2015
This summer I was lucky enough to visit and photograph the Isaac Newton and Mustard Seed Schools, as part of the International Friendship Visit. I first photographed the schools five years ago, and I was excited to see the differences. They weren’t subtle! Both schools had more buildings and pupils, and were buzzing with activity. It was lovely to see. The full album is here.
The Isaac Newton School has an amazing new medical centre, more equipment, and far more buildings:
The Mustard Seed School has far better cooking facilities, easily accessible running water, and a girls dormitory.
The children seemed more confident, too.
Some of the kids even asked me not to take their picture! This was a bit unexpected, but a good sign – they knew I was part of a visit from people who help fund the schools, but despite that they were still confident enough to assert themselves.
You can find the full gallery of photos here. We’ll be sending copies over to the schools for the kids to share.
Posted: June 26, 2015 by Steve Hurd
Visit to Kasese Humanist Primary School
Towards the end of our recent trip to Uganda Hilary and I made an overnight stay in Kasese, where we met up with the three Humanist School Directors, Moses Kamya (Mustard Seed), Peter Kisirinya (Isaac Newton) and Robert Bwanbale (Kasese Primary) and other senior teachers from Kasese.
In this first phase of the Humanist Ethos Project the Directors are introducing each other to their schools in a succession of project meetings. The aim is for everyone to get to know the staff of each school, to examine their facilities and compare how they present Humanism within them. At Kasese we held a formal meeting of the project, where the Directors and staff discussed the appropriate rules for a Humanist Schools and procedures based upon guidance rather than violence.
We began by meeting Robert’s fellow members of Kasese United Humanist Association. The body responsible for starting the school. And we were taken on a tour of the facilities and heard Robert express his vision for the development of the school complex. We saw the original school site, housed in the old East African Railways terminus buildings, which has 7 classes from P1 to P7, with two small nursery classes. As we went into each class the students welcomed us in English, which is used as the medium of instruction from the nursery stage as the school believes that excellence in English is the key to success in life. The school choir sang the school anthem:
Kasese Humanist School!
You are the home for our future
Surely, we shall rest in you
The value of education shall for ever shine!
We students of Kasese Humanist realise the value of Humanism. The principles of a global rational world forces the sun to glitter and shine.
Thanks to the founders for your planning, teachers and parents for your devotion.
Our motto will ever be:
With science we can progress.
Followed by another song where the children proclaimed how they were “happy to be born again in Humanism”.
We moved on to the second school site at Rukoki, to the north of the town centre. This site has new, purpose built classrooms of a high standard. As with the other site it offers classes from P1 through to P7 and 3 reception classes, which took children as young as 3 and 4 years old. We introduced ourselves to every class before being shown around the extensive site which borders a fast flowing melt water river running down from the Ruwenzori Mountains (the fabled Mountains of the Moon) which form the border with Congo.
Our next move was south of the town to see the site of the new BiZoHa orphanage building. Built with support from U.S. Humanists and Atheists the building, when complete, will house 16 girls, in two rooms of 8, looked after by a house mother. Robert has also built a single classroom on the site and his hope is to expand to create a third primary school and ultimately a secondary school into which the three Humanist primary school can feed. There are plans for two guest houses to accommodate a regular flow of visitors from the U.S. and elsewhere and Robert has an ambitious plan to build a safari lodge to take advantage of a location close to Queen Elizabeth National Park. His hope is that income from this and other commercial ventures will help to subsidise the schools.
Details of the Humanist Ethos meeting we held during the visit to Kasese can be read on the new Uganda Humanist Schools Association website. We were impressed by what we saw of the school. The children were happy with their teachers and there was a good learning culture. It is clear that Robert has a policy of inducting the teachers into Humanism using the Principles from the 2002 Amsterdam Declaration on International Humanism. Several young teachers said they have been happy to embrace the principles and become humanists and to let Humanism and the search for truth to influence their teaching.
Uganda Humanist Schools Trust needs to understand more about the legal status of the school before providing significant support. However, for the time being, we are very happy with what we have seen and are willing to provide funds for much needed books and other learning resources. We look forward to a fruitful long-term relationship with the school, which is a full member of the Uganda Humanist Schools Association.
Posted: June 24, 2015 by Steve Hurd
International Team Visits Humanist Schools
The visiting team for the 2015 International Friendship Visit to the Humanist Schools in Uganda comprised: Steve and Hilary Hurd (UHST), Andrew West (BHA/UHST), Trisha Rogers (Vice-Chair BHA), Ed Schmidt (Chair, Ethical Society of St. Louis) and Peter Furness (Director, Australia Humanist Aid). The picture shows the group as we crossed the Equator.
We were warmly welcomed at both Mustard Seed and Isaac Newton Schools and took part in a range of teaching and other activities at the schools. Here is a link to the Friendship Week Programme.
The students as always were a delight to be with. They are enthusiastic and attentive and we were all struck by the happy and purposeful atmosphere of both schools.
After touring each school we could all see what huge progress they have made in recent years. The infrastructure has greatly expanded and it is difficult to imagine that both schools started 8 or 9 years ago with a single classroom.
The students treated us to a lively music and dance performance. At Isaac Newton School, the students performed a version of a traditional dance that was used historically at circumcision ceremonies. It should be noted that the boys in each school have been participating in a national programme of circumcision, which is one element of Uganda’s successful campaign to combat HIV/AIDS.
Hilary gave two talks to bring to the school the latest knowledge on what causes the symptoms of malaria and the latest scientific methods to stop its transmission. Steve gave talks on climate change, the economics of energy markets and set up a debate on urban rural migration. The students are accomplished debaters and follow a strict format with chairperson, time-keeper, critic and adjudicator. Perhaps, somewhat surprisingly given the rural location of each school, both sets of students rejected the motion that “This house believes that the Uganda Government should spend less money on congested cities and more on rural areas”. This perhaps reflects the aspirations of many of the students to move to the towns and cities for jobs once they complete their education.
Ed and Trisha ran a series of lessons to get the students to think more deeply about the nature of mathematics and why they were studying it. Trisha, an experienced mathematics curriculum developer and researcher, spent time with the teachers in each school running a workshop on new developments in mathematics teaching. Ed conducted a fascinating demonstration of pendulum swings using chains of students making wave motions.
Although the schools are run by Humanists most students and, indeed teachers, are religious believers, mainly from different Christian churches but also a proportion of Moslems. It is quite a challenge to prepare a talk on Humanism in this setting, but Steve, with support from Peter, did precisely this by presenting Humanism according to the 2002 Amsterdam Declaration principles as a set of beliefs that can be embraced by all. It clearly worked as many students and teachers said afterwards that, although they had not realised before, they are happy to embrace Humanism. In fact so positive was the response that the meeting ended with the setting up of new Humanist Society at Isaac Newton School with the intention of helping less fortunate people in the villages around the school and providing a forum for the discussion and debate of pressing issues facing their communities and humankind in general.
Andrew was every present as group photographer. He was pursued by students throughout, who all wanted him to take photographs of them with their friends. He took so many stunning photographs and we are planning to place a link to them on the website.
The visit ended with the presentation of re-usable sanitary pads to the girl students by Afripads. This started as an initiative of Central London Humanists and we have co-funded the provision of pads with them for the past two years. On our last day in Masaka we were taken on a tour of two of the Afripad factories (this will be the subject of a separate blog).
At the end of the various activities were were all sad to leave the schools. If you think you might like to join a future visit to the schools please let me know at stevehurd@uhst.org.