LOCATED IN MUBAKU VILLAGE, UGANDA

COVID-19 Impact.

In March 2020, the Ugandan government ordered all schools closed due to COVID-19.  In Jan 2021 schools reopened for grades  P5 and higher.   On May 17, 2021, all classes except nursery baby class and middle class resumed.     On Jun 7th, Uganda went into a nationwide lockdown  due to a sharp increase in COVID-19 deaths and the school closed again.

Uganda has one of the lowest COVID-19 deaths per million rates in the world.  This has been accomplished by rapidly shutting everything down when COVID-19 cases start to rise.

A large impact is that the local lodges are closed, which eliminated one of the few sources of jobs.

 

We have finished the physical construction of the school’s second building, a three classroom nursery school building that includes the Women’s Empowerment Center. The Women’s empowerment center is now in operation.

The funds to paint the building have been raised. However, the building lacks desks, tables, bookcases, books, and other supplies. We still need over $3,000 to purchase everything. Please consider contributing to get the new building fully operational.

The Women’s Empowerment Center is already enabling women from the village to make and sell clothing and crafts.  The proceeds from the sales will help support the school and Mubaku families while their children attend the Nursery School.  

For more information read the June 2021 Mubaku Educational Foundation Newsletter#4

This new building has been named in honor of Nancy Wright, a long-time supporter of the school.  Nancy passed away shortly after attending the dedication of the Primary School Classroom  Building which occurred on September 8, 2019.  The people of Mubaku village have requested that the new building be named in her honor.   Read more about Nancy’s contribution to Mubaku in our November 2019 Mubaku Educational Foundation Newsletter #2.

The women empowerment center is in operation.  We have hired a teacher to teach the village women how to use the foot-powered sewing machines and other equipment.

February 6, 2021:  Woman trying out the new sewing machines.

March 6, 2021: Angida Winnie, one of the Nursery Teachers,  Demonstrating the machines. They are foot power as there is no electricity in the village.

May 19, 2021: The drums, the dingidi (string instrument), the khaki picnic box, and the laptop bags with the pictures of Africa on them were all made using the  Women’s Empowerments Center’s new equipment.

 

Click here to view the progress of the Nancy Wright building.

Nov 2, 2020: Women Empowerment Center meeting

The members of the Women’s Empowerment Center meet at the new building.  They are very excited about the opportunities this will open to them.

Schooling in Mubaku, Uganda

There is limited free schooling in Uganda. Government schools are far apart and are poorly staffed with up to 100 children per class. For Mubaku Village, the nearest school requires the children to walk over an hour through an area with many baboons.  Most parents choose to not send their children to school rather than risk them being attacked by the baboons. For that reason, the villagers decided to form their own school.

As there is no government support for the school, the entire cost for both building and supporting the school is borne by the villagers, who are mostly subsistence farmers with very little income.  For this reason, parents often send only one child from the family, and usually, the girls stay home to help with household duties or get married as young as 13 or 14 years old.

Fortunately, there are two organizations, MUCCO, a village based grassroots group, and MEF, a California-based non-profit who are working together to help realize the dream of building a proper school for the village.  Since MEF joined the effort in 2018, we have managed to build a four-room school for the primary students. This was done through an outpouring of love from both visitors and friends – a total of 226 donors.

In addition, we managed to get 92 of the 205 students sponsored for this school year – so their parents would not need to pay the annual school fee.   By providing scholarships, it means that more kids from each family can attend Bright Future School.  In just the past year, the enrollment at the school has more than doubled and the number of girls now attending has increased at a fast rate.

 But this is just the beginning.  In March,  we broke ground for a three-room nursery school and for a Women’s Empowerment Center.  We would also like to ensure that any child who wants to attend school can,  even if their parents can’t afford to pay the school fees.

HERE’S HOW YOU CAN HELP

 Sponsor a Child for $50/ year, which will pay their entire school expenses, including uniforms, books, and supplies, and hot lunch daily, … or…

Contribute what you can to the building fund.  Any amount will help.