1. family and parenting
2. children

all our children
Spring 2015
Newsle er No. 3
Meet Our Inspirational Ugandan Partners
and A Sponsored Student
Since we first visited Uganda in 2007,
we have met some truly wonderful people! In this newsle er three of them tell
their stories, our two Ugandan coordinators
and one of our sponsored students who is
about to qualify as a doctor. Other success
stories from past sponsored students include Phillious Karibwige who has qualified
as a barrister, Jack Barigira who now teaches
compu ng at Kigezi High School and runs
his own small technology business, James
Bwambale who teaches biology and chemistry in three schools, acts as assistant manager at a new resort on Lake Bunyonyi and
runs a small business in house pain ng and
interior design, and our first sponsored student, Saidi Mbarakh, who has completed his
MSc in plant breeding and gene cs and has
been accepted for a PhD in the same field.
An interview with a sponsored student, Stuart Turanzomwe
“I was first sponsored in 2007 when I
was in class S5; I was a boarder at Kigezi
High School, as my home is about 30kms
from Kigezi but within Kabale district. I
liked school, I was more interested in my
academic performance than in other issues and I was always good academically,
but when you are in school and there is
a problem about your fees ge ng paid
it gets into your head and it is difficult to
concentrate. Your mind is on other things.
I needed sponsorship because my parents did not work and my dad is a polygamist.
When an African man takes a second wife he
tends to ignore the children of the first marriage. My mum tried to support me, but she
was only working in fields and she had five
children. She gave me moral support but it
was very difficult for her to give much financial help. I am the second child, the firstborn
is a lady and she did not get the chance to
Connec ng with all our children:
go to high school. The girlchild is being
given more opportuni es now and even
the government is trying to promote educa on for them. The sponsorship meant
that I could think about my books rather
than school fees. It was enough to make
up for what I lacked, to cover the basics.
I was good at maths and science and
I thought about being an engineer, but by
S6 I knew what I wanted to do. I took it
as a calling because I knew that there are
many people out there in the villages who
are suffering from illness and I feel that as
a doctor I can help. It is a calling from God.
At A level I got 22 points when the
maximum was 25 and these results
gave me a government sponsorship to
cover tui on fees which are expensive,
around 3.4 million shillings per year (just
under £1000). I was at Mbarara University for five years from 2009 to 2014
www.allourchildren.org.uk
and I had good help with living expenses
and the equipment I had to buy from my
sponsor Charles through the charity. I
am very thankful for the help I was given.
I am now working as an intern in Lira Regional Referral Hospital and I will be a fully
qualified doctor in four months. I will then
be able to apply for jobs as a doctor and I
think that I will first work in general prac ce.”
A huge THANK YOU
to all existing sponsors!
@AOC_Uganda
i/AOCUganda
Why sponsorship is necessary to support
children through education in Uganda
Gertrude Atukunda
explains
Although the government of Uganda
has a programme to provide Universal
Primary Educa on (UPE) and Universal
Secondary Educa on (USE), the funds
provided are insufficient to cover all the
costs associated with maintaining a student in school. The following details came
from the deputy head of a USE school:
“In 2014 the UPE grant per pupil per term
was UGX 8,000 (£2) while it was UGX 47,000
(£12) for USE. This money is not expected to
cover the costs of boarding at school (beds,
food, water, electricity, medica on, wages
of labourers e.g. cooks, matron, nurse).
These have to be borne by the parents and
so are included in the school fees. In addion, obviously all personal items needed
by the student are provided by the parent.
Poor parents cannot afford school fees and
boarding costs. Even in schools that were
iden fied as seed secondary schools, where
the schools are expected to operate on government funds only with students residing in
their homes, the funds are insufficient to run
the schools (compounded by late releases
of the funds). There are challenges faced by
Above: Street children explore a newly arrived laptop at the ‘Educate a Child’ centre in Kabale
students who reside in their homes, for example, walking long distances with associated risks especially for girls, inability to do
private study in the evenings/night, and the
s gma that goes with the a tude that such
schools are for the poor. These schools are
mainly found in rural areas and are o en disliked by parents since academic performance
is usually not the best. Some teachers too
tend to shy away from these schools due to
lack of incen ves in the form of allowances.”
costs associated with the educa on of children has to be met by parents. This situaon par cularly disadvantages children from
poor families, especially orphans, who are
not able to send their children to school due
to lack of money. It is therefore important
that such children should be iden fied and
linked to sponsors who can assist them to attend school and live a normal life in future.
Despite government financial support
for educa on, the biggest por on of the
Please help us sponsor Ugandan children
We are a small charity run by volunteer
teachers and re red teachers in the UK.
From small beginnings in 2002 when we
sponsored one student from fines imposed
on sixth form students for using their mobile phones inappropriately, with your help
we are now sponsoring 51 students across
nursery, primary and secondary educa on.
31 of these children are from the Educate A
Child-Street Children Uganda-Centre. On our
annual visits we see for ourselves the lifeline
that sponsorship gives to poor families, as we
meet all the sponsored children. At the moment, we need dona ons to help us cover
the costs for the exis ng sponsored students
(as fees have increased) and to support the
street children centre. Any amount of money, either as a one-off dona on or a regular
payment will help. You can make a donaon or set up a direct debit on our website
www.allourchildren.org.uk
where you can also read our annual report
and learn more about us.
Above: Tamara, learning support assistant at William Morris, teaching maths at the street children centre
Our Two Ugandan Coordinators
The work of All Our Children is coordinated in Uganda by two truly inspiraƟonal people, Gertrude Atukunda
in Kampala and Junior Tukwasibwe in
Kabale. They support us by idenƟfying suitable children for sponsorship,
paying the school fees of sponsored
children each term aŌer we transfer
the money from the UK, and monitoring the progress of the children in
the various schools that they aƩend.
But they mean much more than that
to us! Both have a deep understanding
based on personal experience of the
challenges Ugandan families face in educaƟng their children and of the impact
of poverty on life chances. All their lives
they have made personal sacrifices to
ensure that disadvantaged children have
access to educaƟon. We are fortunate
to be able to benefit from their wisdom and advice, and are in awe of their
compassion and dedicaƟon. For their
services we pay only basic expenses.
Gertrude’s story
Gertrude has a full- me job as a research socio-economist with the Na onal
Agricultural Research Organisa on and is
pursuing a PhD in Sociology at Makerere
University in Kampala under a government
programme funded by the World Bank to
support agricultural research and extension.
Her study focuses on improving advisory
services to rural households engaged in fish
farming to increase fish produc on. Her involvement with All Our Children is purely
from personal interest and in her own me.
Gertrude’s parents were both teachers;
they had seven children of their own but
also took into their home children from very
poor families, most of them orphans unrelated to them. Her father could only aƩend
school himself because he was supported
by a village chief, and he in turn looked after children, some of whom became prominent public servants who aƩributed their
success to him. Even now, their household
of four surviving siblings sƟll provides for
at least one disadvantaged child and all
four siblings are involved in charity work.
Gertrude became involved with the charity
Solomon’s Children through Richard Vokes
of Oxford University whilst he was doing research for his D.Phil in Uganda. He was close
to Solomon, his driver in Kampala, who was
caring for four children alone a er the death
of his wife. When Solomon died of meningi-
s, his children stopped a ending school for
lack of fees. Back in the UK, Richard raised
money for their fees. He later channelled extra money through Gertrude for other needy
children, giving her the task of receiving,
disbursing and accoun ng for the money.
Thus Solomon’s Children was born.
In 2010, Solomon’s Children changed its
name to All Our Children when it encompassed sponsorships in Kabale, South West
Uganda, run by William Morris Sixth Form in
London. Gertrude agreed to con nue receiving and disbursing money, as well as monitoring the children sponsored by the original
Solomon’s Children donors. Each year she
joins us in Kabale where we benefit from
her knowledge and authority as we jointly
monitor the progress of our various projects.
She also undertakes the long road journey to
Kabale on other occasions on our behalf to
support our coordinator there, Junior Tukwasibwe, who, like Gertrude, disburses and
accounts for money we send for school fees.
Junior’s story
Junior studied Social Work and Social Administra on at Kabale University before taking
up a voluntary unpaid post as a social worker
at a street children centre. It was there that
teachers from William Morris Sixth Form first
met him. They were immediately impressed
with his ability to relate to these very poor,
vulnerable, and some mes abused children.
His care for them was clear, as was his
passion for helping them to gain educa on.
Since then, All Our Children has helped him
establish his own centre, Educate a ChildStreet Children-Uganda, and register it as an
official Community Based Organisa on. He,
his wife and his one year old daughter live in
the small centre in which he supports nearly
70 street children. He runs this centre on love,
his unfailingly posi ve and entrepreneurial
outlook, and sheer determina on to improve
the lot of the many children who choose to
live on the street because home is so poor.
By providing food for the children, he encourages them to come to the centre in the dayme where he organises ac vi es for them,
and to return home at night. His aim is to find
sponsors for all the children to a end school.
Like Gertrude, Junior grew up knowing
at first hand the struggle for school fees
that dominates the lives of so many Ugandan families. The eldest (“first born”) of
eight children, he did not complete primary
school unƟl the age of 18, and secondary
school unƟl he was 26, being constantly in
and out of school because of shortage of
money for school fees. From the age of 5
he was taking responsibility for his younger
siblings, and from a very young age working to earn money for fees and food for his
siblings. At university he was supported by
friends as well as his own earnings. Clearly
these experiences have made him into the
strong, capable and deeply compassionate
person that he is. Students from William
Morris Sixth Form have called him an angel.