In 2019, with your help, we raised £3000 to help build 3 new classrooms at Central High School Kabale, Uganda. Now, due to the pandemic, vulnerable girls at the school urgently need our support to continue their education. Please read on!

Do have a look at the 2019 fundraiser page for Central High School Kabale to see updates on the construction work in winter 2019-20, pictures of the finished classrooms in February 2020, and words of heartfelt thanks from teachers and pupils. Huge thanks again to everyone who donated last time – you have already made a bigger difference than you’ll ever know!

We had hoped to fundraise in autumn 2020 for the next planned phase of construction work i.e. 3 more classrooms and a girls’ dormitory. However, a 6-month closure of the school during the pandemic has brought new challenges, particularly for the girls at the school. Many returned to their family homes in remote, rural areas near Kabale and with household incomes much reduced during the lockdown it proved very hard for many of these girls to buy food or basic hygiene items such as soap and sanitary towels. Central High School Kabale’s tireless headmaster and our good friend, Sunday John, contacted some of us in the UK over the summer for assistance to provide emergency food, soap and sanitary towels for the girls to last a few months which he subsequently distributed to the most needy in their remote homes around Kabale.

Pictures are (top): Sunday John distributing sanitary products, soap and food to schoolgirls in remote areas during the closure of the school during lockdown; (bottom), some of the schoolgirls receiving the supplies at home, with family.

Sunday John is still extremely concerned by the situation of many of these girls longer term, however, and has twice been on Ugandan radio to discuss their plight. During the lockdown there were news reports that girls across Uganda had been subject to domestic and sexual violence, hunger, child marriage and deprivation whilst away from school. Sunday John said that the situation was ‘heartbreaking’. While John worked hard to alleviate some of the impact over the lockdown by distributing the emergency supplies, incomes are still insecure and some of the poorest families are unable to fund their daughters’ return to school now that it has reopened. Without the 'safety net' of school, some girls are at risk of being married off and being unable to complete their education, as highlighted in this wider news story on the international impact of the pandemic on girls: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-54370316

We passionately want to support as many girls as possible to continue their studies at the school, so we are creating an emergency fund to subsidize fees for its most vulnerable female pupils, as well as provide them with soap and sanitary towels (the lack of which can sadly result in girls dropping out of school).

Please help us support the most vulnerable girls with their education during the pandemic. (Vulnerable boys will also be considered for support). Thank you!

For more information on the founding of Central High School Kabale and in particular the moving story of its inspiring Headteacher, Sunday John, and how we and others such as Annette Alcock and Justina Gavin came to support him and his school, you can now buy a short e-book compiled and edited by Dr Daniel Emlyn-Jones, another of the school’s UK supporters, with a foreword by Professor John Hammock, Co-founder and Research Associate of the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative at the University of Oxford: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Story-Central-High-School-Kabale-ebook/dp/B08HFSKS99 (£3 paperback, 77p Kindle - all proceeds go to the school)

Picture: a Central High School Kabale pupil receiving emergency supplies from Sunday John at her home