World Shine Organisation, Rwentobo, Uganda​

Many people think that schooling is all about the academic side and providing an education across the board to the children who attend, here at Rwentobo, every aspect of the child and their life now and in the future is of importance.

​There are currently 568 children on the register for our sponsored school in Uganda, however approximately 30/40 children do not attend school on a regular basis due to many reasons.Many issues causing a lack of attendance or the simple termination of schooling are due to children being single or double orphans.

A single orphan is a child who has lost one of there parents, and a double orphan is a child that has no parents at all in these circumstances the child may be looked after by other relatives and at times doing work in the home or on the land will prevent the child from attending school. In extreme and sad cases the child may simply be turned out and have no place to stay.

​In cases where a child doesn’t attend school for a lengthy period of time, the school staff will follow up to see what issues are causing this and to check on the conditions of the child’s life in general. For those children who do end up being turned away and having no place to live, the streets can be hard, cruel, dangerous and in many aspects frightening. Especially to the younger children who are maybe more vulnerable than those of an older age.

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​Recent news and development

The most recent conference took place at the beginning of January, which was held in Rwentobo and many of the children both from our sponsored school and children from other schools attended. It was spread over two days and was in part to minister to the children and several reverends were involved in this.

Part of the current mission of the staff is to visit every child’s home and although the staff know the children and school, visiting their home will give an insight into their family circumstances and any difficulties that they may be facing. The children’s homes/residences are spread over an extended area and due to the fact that walking will be the only means of transportation, as you can appreciate will take a considerable amount of time. Daniel, the head teacher at the school expressed his feelings and explained that many of the homes were “in worst condition that expected” Poverty is very much the nature of the area and sometimes even what we consider as basics, are unattainable.

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What is our goal?

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Due to many of the children being vulnerable, providing a safe, secure and loving environment is paramount to our list of priorities. With this in mind our first goal is to provide boarding facilities for the children. The house you see below was firstly used for the first classrooms, will require further renovation and after this will initially allow 60 children to board. Certain items such as bunk beds, mattresses, bedding etc will be necessary as will the installation of pit latrines near the house. When boarding starts we will require matrons to over sea the board house and care for the children and their needs out of school hours. We already have a security guard and this will of course continue to ensure a safe, secure environment for the children.

​With boarding comes the necessity to install electricity and water, this will be the next issue on our list of priorities which we shall be focusing on in the future.

What would your donation provide?As little as £10 provides a sponsored child’s scholastic materials, a school uniform, break tea and lunch for one month. The children of Rwentobo have been receiving regular nourishment, general heath checks and in particular help with skin and scalp problems which are now being reported back to us as being cleared, and also the children because of this relief, are able to concentrate better during their lessons.