A long time coming ...

Its been a very long time since writing on here, apologies for the delay! Lots has happened since I last wrote so lets see if it can all be put down on paper succinctly..!

Weddings

The last few months have definitely been the season of weddings. Weddings and introductions galore! It has been a real joy to be apart of these special days and to witness many a Ugandan wedding.  I have to say Ugandans know how to host a big party - the weddings are huge and the receptions even bigger! Its almost as if the whole village comes out to celebrate the special day! In amongst all the food, dancing and speeches it is absolutely lovely to hear and see the real honouring of one another taking place. Parents, families and close friends are truly honoured for bringing up their children in a way that is worthy to receive a good partner. I’ve come to see more and more how honouring one another; especially honouring the older in society is so important in the Ugandan culture.         

  

                                

                                 Wedding dancers in traditional wear

                        

       

Wellspring School Open Day

Getting ready for the march

Class dancing

The Nursery, Primary and Secondary school had its open day last Saturday. The day started with a marching band and the whole school marching from the football stadium to the school. All in all we marched around 3 km, band playing and happy children walking to advertise the schools work in the area.  After the march, we met parents and other members of families at the Wellspring site for a time of celebration of the successes the students and teachers have seen throughout the year. Each class presented a little drama, poem, song or dance. The little ones in particular were very cute, especially the baby class who had made a whole outfit out of newspaper!

Newspaper outfits

The secondary school enjoyed learning how to make liquid detergent soap and Vaseline with one of the new science teachers. During the open day the students enjoyed teaching parents and the younger students what they have learnt through practical demonstrations.

Teacher Justus and the students making liquid soap

 

Graduation time

During the open day the nursery students also enjoyed graduating and are now ready to join the primary school in February.  

New Resources

Thanks to Wellspring, parents and students of the secondary school we have been so pleased to be able to buy some more textbooks. This will help us to teach the IGCSE subjects more effectively. Over the last two months, we have also employed 3 new qualified Ugandan teachers to teach the sciences, Business Studies, Economics and History. This really helps to ensure the students are receiving a really good education. Some of these teachers have not taught the International curriculum before and so I am working with them to ensure that there is a cohesive curriculum taught.

 Student sponsors

Thank you to all those people who have offered to sponsor a student through their secondary education. The school year for the Ugandan curriculum is a little different to the International curriculum we follow in the secondary school.  This means that students who have just finished their primary education will start with us at the beginning of February. We are hoping that a few of the students who completed their primary at Wellspring school will continue with us into the secondary. Thank you to all those who have offered to help support some students in doing this. It is such a great help to the families here.

Working at Acacia International School

Last month I was offered a part time job in another international school in the city.  This job has been a real blessing to help further support me financially whilst being here.  The school is called Acacia and I accepted a part time position for a maternity cover for just a day and half a week.

Obligatory picture outside Mandella football Stadium, Namboole

 Visitors

Wellspring has had many a visitor coming through its doors to serve and be apart here. It has been a privilege to have a few of them staying in the house over the past month or so. It has been wonderful to hear stories and glean from some of the people that have lived here in Uganda and have been apart of the foundations of Wellspring. It was such fun having Holly to stay; Holly was the primary head teacher here for 7 years.  We enjoyed lots of chatting, lots of laughs and of course as us teachers do some school talk! At the moment Mike & Beryl are here, they are are an amazing couple who came here over 20 years ago and founded Wellspring. It is such a joy to hear the many stories of the beginnings of what started here along time ago. A man called Keith is also with us; he is here for 6 weeks whilst working on the building doing plumbing work and electrical work and general anything that needs doing practically. We have all definitely been enjoying his cooking, amongst many other things whilst he is here, the students especially who had a bread making lesson from him today. Over the course of the last two months there have been many more visitors to speak off, all coming to help and be apart of what is taking place here.

Coming home for Christmas

I’m so looking forward to coming home for Christmas with a special someone. We will be arriving home for a cold Christmassy two weeks and are looking forward to seeing you all soon.

Thank you to everyone for your continued support and love that is shown in many different ways, it is really felt and known! Look forward to seeing you all soon.

New Term ... Challenges

  

Summer Holidays:

Beaches in Tanzania

It was so lovely to see and catch up with many of you over the summer holidays. Before heading home for 6 weeks however I had the privilege of visiting Tanzania. It was so interesting to see the differences in life between the two East African countries. Life seemed a lot quieter and calmer compared to the busyness of Ugandan life. In particular the roads were calm and not so hectic, this may have been because we were quite a way out of the main city, Dar Es Salem. The Tanzanian people are very friendly and would always be found greeting each and every person they pass along the roads. It was a nice change to be greeted as normal rather than shouted and pointed at as the ‘Muzungu’ walking down the street. Tanzania is a very beautiful country and we got to enjoy some of the lovely beaches around about. It was great to see the wonderful work Wellspring are doing in Tanzania, working to help people and bring change in the local community through schooling of the young and adult literacy.

Wellspring Students, TZ

Adapting to life back in Uganda:

Old Taxi Park, Kampala

Having had such a lovely time back at home made, to some extent adapting to life back in Uganda a little difficult. I had forgotten some of the challenges that can sometimes be faced whilst living here; as soon as I arrived back (just over three weeks ago) the national water was off and so after a really long flight the water was not available for 2 days, making washing properly a challenge.  I had also forgotten how driving along the manic roads felt and because of the vast amount of people how long it takes to travel anywhere. I have learnt again to embrace the vibrancy of life and embrace the long travel distances.

Local shop, Bweyogerere

Since being back I’ve also been reminded of the differences in priorities of daily life, how one must greet and ask people how they are doing at all times before getting down to business. Off course this is such a lovely thing to do but when quickly wanting to pick something up from the local shop unfortunately in a Western mind, this can become a ‘big inconvenience’.  This has challenged my thinking again and reminded me of what is important; in England we are so focussed on time rather than building relationships and keeping the peace. We can learn a lot about community from the people here.

Thankfully I’m now back into the swing of things and back to living here seems normal again. It is really good to be back, connect with and see friends here in Wellspring and beyond. The people here are so friendly, lovely, gracious and fun.

 School life:

The start of the new school year has begun and it is exciting to have been able to employ new teaching staff. This means that the teachers can stick to teaching their own specialities, thus giving the students a much broader experience and understanding of the subjects they are studying. The recruitment of new staff also gives me more time to be able to focus on advertising the school. So this term I will be focussing on new ways of advertising, including more leafleting, possibly TV adverts (yes that is how they advertise here!), and updating the website link.

New school year

Sadly we have lost a few students due to financial reasons. As I am sure you know getting a good education with good class sizes and resources is not free for children in Uganda. Even though Wellspring tries to ensure that the school fees are at a lower price people can afford, sometimes it is still difficult for families to be able to pay.

I’ve come to realise that we in the UK take free education for granted. The system of tax; whether we agree with how it is spent or not really does give an opportunity for all children to access a good education. Uganda’s children do not have this opportunity and families are often looking for the finances to fund their children’s schooling.

One of the goals for the Millennium Development focused its attention and funding on primary education and now in Uganda the availability of free primary education has seen enrolment at the primary level reach as much as 93%. However these ‘free’ schools funded by the government have class sizes of 100 – 150 students each. One teacher often teaches the class at any given time and as you can imagine the resources used are very slim.  Then when it comes to secondary age it is an even greater challenge where affordable prices are few and far between.

To make long lasting sustainable change in this local community a good affordable secondary school is necessary. With this in mind we are working hard to develop a secondary school that is affordable and allows all children to access a very good education. Allowing the children to succeed in all aspects of life.  To help to make this happen I would like to extend an invite to be able to help families need.  In order for us to see sustainable development in this beautiful country, education must be a priority; for this to take place we wanted to see if any of you would like to sponsor a child through their secondary education. Just £5 / £10 / £20 month could help a child receive a decent education giving them an opportunity to succeed and the potential to raise out of poverty. If you’re interested in helping please do let me know by emailing me on cerysa@icloud.com.

So back to it; life in Uganda, three weeks have gone by and although I am missing you all it is starting to feel like home again! Remember there is always a place to stay here if you ever fancy visiting this wonderful country!

Advertisements, visitors and a library!

What a busy and exciting month this has been! Where to begin?

Thanks to Sophie Greener; an A’level student at Caludon Castle School we have been able to design and print leaflets and a school prospectus to advertise Wellspring International School.  Sophie raised money by selling cakes during lunch times and break times. With this money we have been able to create excellent advertisements, which in turn will help us to develop and grow. As we come to end of the academic year these leaflets have come at just the right time to advertise for the next school year.  Next week we will be delivering these leaflets to people in the nearby local areas.

After hard work in organising, registering and sorting the amazing amount of books we received from Books to Africa and the Nettle Hilll team we are pleased to announce that the library is now set up and complete with over 2440 books. It has been amazing to see the students in both the primary and secondary schools absolutely enjoying reading the variety of books here.

A variety of books to chose from

There are so many books ranging from academic text books for a range of subjects from English, Maths, Science, Psychology, Sociology, Geography, History, ICT, Business studies and many more subjects to Novels; including Thrillers, Action, Adventure, Romance and Comedies to Biographies, books around Food, Travel and Entertainment. We also have around 600 books for the primary school and young readers, including many reading schemes.

This resource is the only one in the area, it will be used to support the community work that is already taking place within Wellspring and beyond. The community work helps to teach those who have not had the privilege to go to school basic literacy skills. The library will not only be an excellent resource to support this work further but will also support the work that takes place in both the primary and secondary schools. Helping to develop a love and culture of reading.

Enjoying learning in the completed library

As the school year comes to an end we are looking forward to our last open day for the year on Sunday 5^th July. This will be a day where we can really advertise the school and newly opened library.

Drama lessons

Over the last two weeks I have had the privilege of having some very special visitors coming to volunteer at Wellspring. Three ex students from Caludon Castle School; Charli Roberts, Arron Hope and Jyoti Chauhan, (all of whom I taught when they were 13 years old, and then the girls I taught A level Philosophy, up until they were 18 years old) came to offer their help and support. They were involved and stretched out of their comfort zones whilst taking part in many activities in both the primary and secondary schools. They taught PE lessons, Music, Dance and Drama lessons and also did some arts and crafts lessons with the primary school. A particular highlight was seeing them teach the students how to dance English Style to the famous ‘Saturday Night’ dance. I don't think Arron ever thought he would ever teach a dance lesson!

Parachute Games

 They were also involved In teaching English lessons with the students from the secondary and helped to support these students facilitate and lead a whole school debate with the primary. This was an excellent tool to develop the secondary students’ leadership skills whilst they took on the role of facilitators in the primary!

English lessons

Secondary students teaching the primary students

Secondary students teaching the primary students

Chali, Jyoti and Arron also enjoyed helping and supporting the community work that takes place. They enjoyed travelling to other communities, seeing what life is like for people here, meeting and chatting to the locals and also helping to support the skills training taking place.

It was an absolute honour and privilege to have some ex students come and visit; they have all grown up, matured and it was lovely to see their desire to want to add and make a difference into society and peoples lives. 

The academic year finishes here on Fri 3^rd July, after this I am looking forward to visit friends in Tanzania. Wellspring also has a work in Dar Es Salaam, alongside visiting friends I am looking forward to seeing the work Wellspring are doing there. I will then be coming home for a month in August, I can’t wait to catch up with many of you very soon! Thank you again for your continued support, love and constant communication. Your support has helped to create and make a difference here!

Whats in a name?

Wow, it is May already and defiantly time for another blog update! The last month or so have been a lot of fun, exploring the country with lots of different visitors. Over the Easter holidays it was lovely to have my friend Dan and parents visit for a couple of weeks. We defiantly enjoyed seeing more of the countryside and learning about the cultural heritage here in Uganda. It always amazes me to see how green the countryside is, the landscape is so luscious and exploring more helps to see why this beautiful country was coined the ‘bread basket and pearl of Africa.’  In fact they say that the soil here in Uganda is so fertile that you can pretty much grow anything in it.

At the source of the Nile, Jinja

It was amazing to learn that according to the law when a compound was created for people to live on they used to have to plant three trees in the grounds in order to provide for the people living there. Each compound therefore must have a Matooke (variation of plantain; one of the staple dishes) tree, a Mango tree and an Avocado tree.  If you visit the old compounds they all have these trees growing, amazing way to ensure people have food nearby in their communities. This off course has changed a little bit as people have started to live outside of the traditional compounds. Thus some people do not have the food readily available.

Jinja

Students picking their first harvest

That reminds me, we have started to see our first harvest in our little school garden. The students were thrilled to see their hard work paid off, especially after a few disappointments and hurdles jumped through to actually get some fruit.  It was a good lesson for all of us about hard work, commitment and productivity. We now have carrots and a few tomatoes to enjoy. We have also just planted one of the staple foods here; beans.  So we look forward to enjoying these soon.

I am always inspired by the shared community life here and whilst visiting the Tombs of the Buganda Kabakas’ (Kings of the central region) I was inspired to learn how the naming of children takes place. I have always found it difficult to understand and get my head around how each person has a different surname, when a child is born they do not seemingly take on the family surname. Going to the Kusubi Tombs helped me to understand how this takes place and how community is so in built in the minds of people and structures of society here.  When a child is born they are given their own personal surname, not a family surname but a name that identifies them with their wider clan. The name given is much bigger than the immediate family but identifies and connects them to their wider community, their clan. Each clan has certain names that can be used; once the name is heard in any setting, the person can be identified to that clan. There are 6 million people living In Buganda (Central region of Uganda). The Buganda tribe is spilt into 54 clans, this means approximately if the clans are spread evenly across the 6 million people in Buganda, there are around 100,000 people in each clan. Therefore it can be said when a surname is given to the child it is identified with the much wider community of aprox. 100, 000 people!  This has been a great challenge to me especially as in our western society we keep ourselves to ourselves; we go to work, come back home and stay in our houses. We identify with our immediate family and that is it. Unless we work at it, there is no real expression of community. Here community is even inbuilt in the naming of their children, no wonder belonging to a much wider community is so important! I have been challenged to ask myself; what community am I seeing, what community am I given to and how do I add to this? How is community expressed in our daily lives? Us Westerners can learn something of community from people here.

Kasubi Tombs

Kasubi Tombs. The fire is kept alight for as long as the King is alive

At the school we are in the midst of end of year exams. It is crazy to think that the academic year has gone so quickly, one more half term and the year is over! Last week we enjoyed a school trip to watch William Shakespeare’s ‘Twelve Night’ at another international school in the city. The students loved it; it also worked as a great revision tool before the English exams. 

School Trip to see Shakespeares 'Twelve Night'

Students watching the play

As we are coming to the end of the academic year it is that time in the year when we need to push the advertising of the school for next years cohort. In order to advertise, I have produced the school prospectus and leaflets. Thanks to Sophie Greener; an ex-GCSE philosophy student and students at Caludon Castle School who have raised some funds. The money they raised from a school cake sale will help us to print the leaflets and school prospectus and advertise effectively in the surrounding areas. Thank you to all that was involved! Hopefully this will help the school to grow in numbers.

I am also looking forward to receive 4 ex-ALevel students next month. These students have just finished university, (yes, this makes me feel old!) and are coming to volunteer with us for 2 weeks. They will be involved with both the primary and secondary schools and also with the weekly training and community work that takes place. We’re looking forward for them coming and having an experience of Uganda, we will see what happens.. Watch this space!