Looking to the future.......microfinancing!

For now there is nothing more I can do on the school build front except wait, keep my fingers crossed and be patient!

One thing that has been crossing my mind a lot recently is the future of our support of Ndeeba Primary School. Right now we support 70% of the running of the school. As mentioned in previous posts, the school is a fee paying school which is standard in Uganda with only a handful of government schools in the country. The fees are  £6-£8 per term depending on whether this is the Nursery Section or the main school. The problem is that many of the parents cannot afford the fees, so pay nothing, some pay what they can and those that can pay do. But the expenses are still the same regardless.

The Architects....and the final outcome!

Following our informative if somewhat overwhelming meeting with the Education Authority we headed off to the Architects. The last time I communicated with them was in October to tell them that the 4 storey school would not work and to halt on all further work whilst I searched for land.

So here I was cap in hand.....and no land!! Help!!

The Education Authority.....

Now the Uganda Education Authority is split into Divisions and our area is Rubaga Division. Over the last few years I have always got on well with the Division but just before Christmas the entire department was relocated to new areas and totally replaced! This new group took themselves off round all the schools in the area shouting the high and mighty at everyone and threatening forced closure if the school did not get in line with new rules that had been written about how a school could run.

Our new brick school.....the dilemma...

Leading on from my previous post........I left in October with potential pieces of land being sought out and went back to my life in the UK. Everything was all a bit up in the air when I got back on a personal level as I had arranged all my plans for me to not actually be in the UK during that time. Anyway these tings happen and so I plodded along in regular contact with Rose the Director of Ndeeba Primary School and my lawyer as they searched for land and researched the paperwork.

Our New Brick School......the challenges...

The main focus of this trip was to move forward the school build project. When I launched this project a few years ago I had no idea just how challenging it would be! Firstly raising the money! £60,000 is an awful lot of money to raise especially during the current financial climate but thanks to some amazing friends, family and supporters from all over the place we hit that target last year!

Once the money was in place we set about putting the plans into action and met with the architect to design the school.