VILLAGE SCHOOL SUPPORT

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Omushana supports small village schools which enable children to access good education close to their homes without the need of long dangerous journeys or being forced to board away from their families and village culture. These schools have usually been founded by the parents and village leaders to benefit their children but they often suffer from lack of resources as parents cannot afford to pay sufficient fees.  More recently the schools have sometimes found it difficult to cover costs due to many children being picked by sponsors and taken away to other schools leaving insufficient pupils in the village to make the school sustainable.

Over the past decade Omushana has helped many such schools by assisting with infrastructure improvements such as classrooms, latrines and solar power as well as providing desks and books and water supplies. Such projects are always undertaken with full community participation – the parents provide many of the materials such as making bricks or collecting hardcore as well as providing much of the labour.

We have also been able to donate thousands of pens, pencils and scholastic materials as well as laptop computers given to us in UK by schools and partner organisations such as Pens 4 Kids UK.

In addition, between 2015 and 2022 we ran a progamme of “class support” which linked a group of donors to a group of Ugandan children - usually a specific class. This programme was specifically developed and piloted in communities around Bwindi Impenetrable Forest to overcome the many issues that arise as a result of individual child sponsorship. It proved very popular and was successful in encouraging communities to share resources and cooperate together to support the next generation.

The benefits of “class support” were that unlike "traditional" individual child sponsorship:

• Resources are spread fairly amongst many children, with the local community and class parents deciding which children require the greatest support - including bringing children not currently attending school into the scheme;
• Children remain in their local village school and are not taken away from their parents to board or forced to take long daily dangerous journeys;
  
• Village schools can remain viable which benefits the whole community - numbers of pupils increase rather than children being taken away;
• No individual child receives 100% support - responsibility for all children remains with their families/carers;
• Parents/communities are fully involved in the expenditure of donations to ensure transparency and discourage jealously;
• Purchase of desks, books and other class equipment bought by the programme benefits future classes;
• If a donor wishes to stop their support, this does not have a significant impact on any child - no child will drop out of school as a result of a supporter leaving the programme;
• Since donors are supporting several children, they can see a variety of benefits from many individuals and will not be disappointed if a single "sponsored child" drops out or performs poorly.

Class Support programmes were run at schools in Nyakeina, Ruhija, Rushaga and Kyeshero. Although all the classes supported have now reached the end of their time in these schools, the experience gained by Omushana will enable us to campaign for a similar approach throughout the region in the hope that the culture of individual sponsorship can be transformed into a positive experience for everyone.

Although Omushana is no longer running the Class Support programme, we are still involved in supporting village schools which are struggling to remain open or which have urgent requests for example books. We also provide support through our Community Library and IT programmes, with Librarians visiting the remote schools at least once a fortnight.