Director of Programs, Janepher and I in front of the school assembly. Janepher has been with School for Life since we acquired land (jungle) in Katuuso village in 2010.
I was feeling ALL of the emotions as I prepared for my impending trip to Uganda - excitement, fear, anticipation, hope and a touch of exhaustion. This trip would be the first I have taken overseas as a mother, and away from my little girl for more than one night, but also an opportunity to visit after not having been to Uganda since March 2020 when news of the COVID-19 pandemic had just broken across the world and I had to quickly make my way back home to Australia, seeing flights being grounded internationally and the world shutting down around me, and not knowing when or if I would ever return to Uganda.
It’s been a wild 3 years, navigating School for Life through the tricky and unpredictable COVID-19 pandemic, ensuring we had the right strategies in place and requisite funding to see us through this uncertain time and keep our team intact. But the part that warms my heart the most is the fact that it was the Ugandan team that continued to innovate and adapt their operations to ensure they could educate our students despite schools being closed for 2 long years - and that’s the entire aim of School for Life - to empower local people with the capacity they need to help themselves. This work is only a success if it lives on beyond any of us working on it here today.
I’m proud to say that School for Life didn’t just survive the pandemic, we grew through it and that’s because we’ve spent the past 15 years developing strong foundations, team and infrastructure.
The boarding houses constructed for 600 High School boarders during COVID.
While the Ugandan Government mandated schools to be closed to face to face learning for 2 years, we kept our students learning at home. We built new infrastructure including boarding facilities for 600 students and invested in professional development for our staff. It’s estimated that 30% of students will never return to school post Covid in Uganda. We had 98% of our students come back …. 500 are living on campus, 60% are female… the boarding facilities have given our students a safe space to learn and grow, to express themselves and develop as humans. 100% of our students passed their Primary 7 exams last year and every one of our students learns income generating skills and how to set up and run a business while in our schools. The skills are tailored to their context and include agriculture, animal husbandry, computer literacy, shoe making, baking and making liquid soap.
The Katuuso students proudly selling their handmade liquid soap at a recent exhibition. Look how stoked they are to be making money!
As I got ready to leave home I could hardly control my racing mind. My thoughts ranged from the practical: have I packed everything I need, passport, visas, clothes? To the fundamental: what if the School for Life culture has been lost? What if the schools aren’t operating as well as they used to? And, this thought is uncomfortable to share, but I had a niggling doubt in my mind… what if I got over there and I wasn’t as passionate about our work as I used to be? What if I didn’t feel the same love I had always felt? Of course I was desperate to get back there to see the progress first hand, I just didn’t know how I’d feel. I got on the plane and slept like a baby for 12 hours straight (my first uninterrupted sleep in a year!) and arrived in Entebbe 24 hours later.
The next morning we made our long awaited trip to Mbazzi High School to see the brand new boarding facilities for the first time… and you know what happened? The minute we pulled up outside the gates, I couldn’t control my tears. So. Many. Tears.
I was bursting with joy and a whole range of emotions bubbled up from within - shock at the sheer magnitude of what has been built, a deep weight of responsibility to continue to fulfil this enormous promise, happiness to see that the children have a safe space to grow, live and learn, and relief that the COVID pandemic finally seems to be behind us. Seeing the dream we have been working so hard to achieve from so far away, in real life, was a dream come true. What I saw was a miraculous amount of positive change… and I knew right away that this will forever remain my life’s work.
Crying happy tears (and not the pretty kind!) as I return to Uganda for the first time in 3 years, accompanied by our Country Director Brenda.
Inside the school gates hundreds of our students and staff were standing in a guard of honour, welcoming me back ‘home’ to Uganda. So many faces, both familiar and some new, in their bright coloured School for Life uniforms, singing and playing the bongo drums, holding signs, laughing, smiling and showering me in hugs. It was totally surreal and a moment I will never forget. The warmth, the gratitude, love and the pure joy is hard to put into words. To see these kids, happy, healthy, nurturing and thriving… the way EVERY child should be and to remember that they’re getting an opportunity to dream and become whatever they choose was breathtaking. Students I knew from when they started with us in Year 1 in 2011 had become bright young adults in Senior 5. I felt like a proud aunty seeing everyone again.
For those of you who support us, I can tell you that every single donation towards our work, makes an enormous difference there and is so deeply appreciated by our community.
Happy days at Katuuso Primary School.
It’s difficult to put into words the feeling you get when you walk into a School for Life school and I was reminded right away that our culture is truly unique. The colour and positivity immediately jumped out at me - bright beautiful artworks and murals proudly displayed on the walls and throughout the classrooms. Engaged teachers, and happy students, learning through doing wonderful, hands on activities. I can’t help but smile when I hear the boisterous laughter coming from classrooms within the school. Everyone feels happy to be there and I felt energised, inspired and reinvigorated by the strong sense of belonging, a deep sense of commitment. Everyone feels truly aligned to our higher purpose: to educate poverty out of existence. My cup was overflowing with joy.
The boarding houses are a safe space for our students to learn and grow, away from the challenges and risks many face within their communities.
Being back in Uganda reminded me of the powerful ‘hidden curriculum’ that underpins our quality education model. This is School for Life’s special sauce, our unique IP that is responsible for developing our students inside and outside the classroom and showing students what they are capable, and most importantly, worthy of. Each of our students is being grown and nurtured in a way that supports their unique personality and personal character - their health and wellbeing, their leadership, their critical and creative thinking skills. The schools give them everything they’ll need to live a productive and rich life. Our hidden curriculum is responsible for developing their self belief and confidence, and when they go home and teach their siblings or their parents how to read and write, they become advocates for the value and importance of education within the wider community.
In rural parts of Uganda, education is a dream that sits beyond the realms of reality for the majority of children. They are born knowing that they won’t go to school and believing that they aren’t worthy of being educated. Many are subject to hard physical labour, corporal punishment, early and unwanted marriage and pregnancies…. They won’t look you in the eye when they speak to you, at times I’ve seen them cower when I’ve raised my hands in the air conversationally. The lotto of life can be so unfair - it still astounds me that where you’re born can have such an impact on the life and opportunities you will have and it will never be lost on me the true inequalities there are in this world.
In contrast, SFL students stand proudly in their neat school uniforms, look you in the eye, shake your hand and say good morning to you as you walk by. They will stand and make conversation with you, ask you questions they genuinely want to know the answers to and talk passionately about their dreams and aspirations.
The confidence our students have to hold a conversation is a rare find in Uganda.
I spent some time at the girls’ boarding house after school one afternoon, chatting with the girls and showing them pictures of my little girl Charlotte.
I started talking to our Head Prefect Lyn who joined School for Life a few years ago. I asked her what her ambitions were and her answer stopped me in my tracks. She said, “I know what I want to do with my life”… with incredible conviction… “I am going to build a school like School for Life so that other children like me can have the same opportunity I’ve been given.” And then she said, ‘and I won’t let you down’... That moment was life-changing for me. It all hit me in one moment that if Lyn went on to deliver on her promise, thousands more lives would be impacted, and Lyn is just one of our 1700 students…. Just imagine what the other 1699 will create and just think of the ripple effect they will go on to create with their education.
Each one of these young people will go on to make educated choices, to value and prioritise education for their own children and they will be equipped with the skills and knowledge they need to create their own livelihoods, and the commitment to pursue their dreams with confidence. That to me, is sustainable change, and that is a battle forever worth fighting for.
I can’t wait to get back over there again and hope one day you’ll join me to!
Watch the highlights from the trip here.
Lyn and I together at Mackenzie House.
