History

Supporting Ugandan Education was founded in 2012 initially to support needy students at Angal School, Angal, Uganda and to fund capital works for the school. School fees were about £105 per year per student because it is a boarding school. We asked people to donate £15 per month to support a student, giving a bit extra. Since then, as the exchange rate varied,the number of students supported has been as high as 72, because all of the money is used for school fees.

Our first capital project in 2013 was to complete a security wall and gate for Angal school, giving students and staff not only security but also protection from the wild animals.

It was then decided to expand the charity’s area of operation to include a girls primary school in the area. So in 2015, we raised funds for solar lighting for Pakwach Girls Primary school which we did after consulting the charity Lights for Learning. This gave pupils the opportunity for studying after dark and provided a source of income from phone charging.

Our third project was a security fence around the Pakwach Girls Primary school completed in 2017.

Our fourth project was a security fence around the St. Joseph the Worker Secondary school completed in 2019.

Our fifth project was two sanitary waste incinerators for Panyango SS and St. Thomas Aquinas SS completed in 2019.

The Covid 19 pandemic, which closed schools and caused lockdown,  stopped any project work in 2020. We added humanitarian aid to the charity objects and started an appeal to raise money for food and other necessities for the people in the villages.   We raised over £13,000.  Fr. Denis described the outcome:

"From March 18, 2020 when the government of Uganda announced a lockdown as a measure to control the spread of Covid-19, local villagers were hit hard, on the one hand because supplies became expensive due to absence of transport and on the other hand because they themselves couldn't move in the neighbourhood to get something locally for themselves.

Almost all homes would have one meal a day, around 5pm. Mangoes helped for some time, when they got finished, the situation became even worse. Corona didn't reach the villages, we thank God, but the indirect consequence of the lockdown is what the villages suffered greatly.

The help we received from the UK for humanitarian intervention, went a long way in alleviating especially the hunger situation. Over 500 villagers in very rural settings in NEBBI were helped with foodstuff, some clothing and bedding.

We are very grateful to all of you for the good heart. May God reward you abundantly. We know of course that the situation is not yet back to normal as of the pre Covid-19 times, but, with the lockdown eased and geo-social interactions on the rise, the villages will bit by bit rise, pick up their pieces and soldier on.

We pray for the UK and its peoples. Pray for us too. May this God-given humanity unite us, making us stand by each other in season and out of season."

With the Covid-19 situation eased and schools in operation, the trustees in Uganda asked us to proceed with the grant for the Solar project for St, Thomas Aquinas School, Akanyo. The work was completed in October despite the humanitarian situation in Nebbi Diocese being very poor. We continued to send food aid and to pay school fees, including fees for at home learning. In total, we sent £8400 forthe solar energy project, £7545 for school fees and £6000 for humanitarian aid. It was only school fees for two terms, because the January fees were sent in December 2021. We did not send the January 2023 fees in 2022.

For 2023, school fees had increased after lockdowns and our trustees asked to fund more students. We appealed to our regular donors to increase their donations, even during the cost-of-living crisis, and some were able to. We covered the excess required from general donations, giving over £16,000.

Supply chain disruptions and price rises, a drought and then floods meant that humanitarian aid was still needed throughout the year.  We started a Hunger Appeal, which was well supported. We sent over £10,000 for food, medicines and other necessities.

The project for the year was school desks for Panyango Secondary School for a less distracting learning environment and for use in national exams to save the cost of transport for students. We could not afford this, but happily we were awarded a grant from another charity which covered the cost of £9,000. 150 desks were supplied and used in this year's exams.