A. REQUEST FOR SCHOOL FEES 2026:
i. The number of students remains 60
ii. The distribution remains 30 for Panyango and 30 for St. Thomas Aquinas, Akanyo
iii. Per term per student is 473,000(£103)
iv. Per term for all 60 is 28,380,000(£6,170)
v. For one student in 2026 is 1,419,000(£308)
vi. For all 60 in 2026 is 85,140,000(£18,508)
vii. Fees for first term could be received by 23rd January
viii. Fees for second term could be received by 18th May
ix. Fees for third term could be received by 7th September
B. REQUEST FOR HUMANITARIAN AID 2026:
The situation here doesn’t show positive prospects yet. On top of natural calamities and man-made difficulties in-country, there are refugees pouring in regularly from South Sudan and the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Locals welcome, accommodate and feed them before government comes in to register and transfer them to the camps and settlements. This makes harder the already terrible situation we find ourselves in.
We thus advise that we could receive this aid quarterly, in March, June, September and December.
We suggest 15,000,000 shillings (3,261 pounds) per quarter.
For the whole of 2026, the suggested amount is 60,000,000 shillings (£13,044).
C. REQUEST FOR FUNDS TO PURCHASE CLASSROOM FURNITURE FOR ST. THOMAS AQUINAS SECONDARY SCHOOL – AKANYO
MAIN CHALLENGE OUT OF THE MANY: Tables and stools for use by students.
Uganda has rolled out a new curriculum for Secondary schools, and with this, sitting arrangement in class has changed. Students now sit facing each other, meaning desks have been replaced with tables and stools. For the final(external) examinations though, single seater desks are still used. Schools now have the uphill task of making tables and stools. A set of furniture which has 1 table and 5 stools goes for 900,000 shillings. St. Thomas Aquinas needs 100 sets, and this will cost 90,000,000 shillings. The financial plan is (based on the exchange rate of 1 pound to 4,600 Uganda shillings)
£1 ,065 (4,900,000 shillings) Our Local Contribution
£18,500 (85,100,000 shillings) Requested
£19,565 (90,000,000 shillings) TOTAL
Thank you very much and may God bless you all.
With our best wishes,
Fr. Charles Ohuro and Fr. Denis OCANDA
BACKGROUND:
The nearest secondary school was 16kms away from Akanyo. With the poverty that looms high among our people, accessing this school was financially and practically impossible for the parents. Subsistence crop cultivation, simple home-based animal husbandry and small-scale roadside business, are the main economic activities of the people here. Digging with the hand hoe and taking animals out for grazing in the wilderness is the precise definition of the life of the people here. With these, they have grown into men and women of the ancestral African villages, aware painfully that they will forever remain where they are, not because they migrated there but because they were born there. That is their fate; that will be the fate of their children and their children’s children. They would wish that from the primary school, their children proceed to a secondary school. That wish has for years remained a wish, making it become increasingly clear to the children that as their parents are, so they will soon be. Some children would wish to make it to that far secondary school on the poor bicycles of their parents, ready to cover the 32kms daily. This of course by all standards is a painful last resort, impractical upfront. Many then either repeat primary to keep staying in school or remain home where they get married or are married, thus beginning families in which husband and wife are less than twenty years of age.
FOUNDATION OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS SS – AKANYO:
In 2014, Fr. Denis Ocanda made 10 years in priesthood. He thought of doing something monumental, on the one hand to thank God and on the other hand to respond to an elegant challenge facing the local community whose shepherd he was.
Thus the founding and opening of St. Thomas Aquinas SS – Akanyo on the 3rd of March 2014 in an old Church which he partitioned into three: Senior One classroom, girls’ dormitory and staffroom. The money used for this work was the Akanyo parish Christmas collection of the year 2012, about 12 million shillings (3,800 Euros). A smaller building next to the church served as bookstore, laboratory and bursar’s office. The pioneer students were 34 students, and staff were 11( 6 teachers, 2 watchmen, 2 cooks, 1 bursar). The girls who registered for the boarding section were 8 and boys 5, all sleeping on papyrus mats as their beds.
SUBSEQUENT DEVELOPMENTS:
The School is Licensed (No. ME/32/5507) and Registered
(No. PSS/S/606) by Uganda Government through its Ministry of Education as a private, nongovernment aided, mixed, day and boarding secondary school. With subsequent Christmas collections (2013, 2014, 2015), and other local contributions and overseas aid, other buildings were constructed, giving the school its present shape.
ACHIEVEMENTS:
The school has educated and produced over 200 professionals serving Uganda in various capacities. There are nurses, midwives, police officers, teachers, seminarians training for priesthood, university students with big dreams. The academic year 2025 closed with 450 students, and the projection this year is 500.