End of term 1 at AASU Nursery & Primary School!

March 2011

The month of March was definitely a very busy one for Arise and Shine Uganda and a very successful one at that. It saw two of our main projects (Arise and Shine Nursery and Primary School, Kibuye; andArise and Shine Nursery and Care Home, Jinja) really start to stabilize, allowing us more time and opportunity in the up and coming months to focus on developing the rest of our projects.

Arise and Shine Nursery and Primary School opened in February and throughout March has seen more pupils enrolling. Those already attending the school are progressing in leaps and bounds, particularly with their language skills. It is really satisfying to witness that all the hard work of fundraising, building and opening the school was worthwhile, giving these students the opportunity to begin the achieve their potential. In April AASU is completing the ‘aesthetic’ finishing touches to the school as well as conducting additional teacher training workshops during Easter holidays. We also hope that more students register for classes after the break.

During March Arise and Shine Nursery and Care Home relocated to a great new house in a safe area with plenty of room for our increasing number of children. After the initial chaos of moving, we are now fully settled in and (with great thanks to Eric and The Madhivani’s) we have been able to establish a regular feeding program ensuring a varied and nutritious diet for the children.

Now that we have entered April, we at AASU hope to be able to turn our focus towards expanding ourCommunity Education and Community Outreach programs, ahead of our first interns arriving in May (who we hope will be able to help us continue with establishing these projects). It looks like it’s going to be another busy month - and with rains finally arriving in the village, we hope to be able to precede, full steam ahead.

Drought in Kibuye Village

At the moment in Kibuye village, as across much of Uganda, we are experiencing drought conditions. Most of the people in rural Uganda depend on subsistence farming for food and daily life. However, due to recent changes in the climate, the rains came unexpectedly early and the sunny months have extended further than predicted. Farmers planted their crops with the expectation of early rain which never came. Due to this, many crops have dried in the fields and for the past 2 months the village has been faced with famine. Live stock which would have been an alternative source of food has also been massively affected. All grass dried up as have all many water bodies. As a result animals are dying due to starvation and lack of water. Even the AASU bore hole - like many others across the village - has dried out. We are hoping to be able to fix this week by digging further down and creating a bigger water tank to be able to sustain the growing water needs of the community.

Arise and Shine Uganda, as a community based organisation, has stepped in to try and help reduce the immediate struggles in Kibuye Village. We are also trying to introduce more sustainable methods of farming and food storage methods throughout the community to ensure this situation does not happen again next year.

Volunteering for AASU

Volunteering for Arise and Shine Uganda provides a great opportunity to donate your time and knowledge to helping a worthwhile cause. Whether its for one week or one year AASU will put your to very good use, whilst making your time with us fun and memorable. Moreover, you will be able to see the positive impact of your work every step of the way.

As a charitable organisation, AASU relies upon the time and skills of volunteers. Without you, we simply wouldn’t be able to function and we are eternally grateful to those who have - or in the future will - donate their time and skills to our projects.

The rate in which the organisation is expanding is too great for our current staff and volunteers to keep up with - therefore we really need all the help we can get.

As a young organisation we try our best to give volunteers and interns an opportunity to make a real impact on the organisation - you bring the ideas and enthusiasm and we will do all we can to assist you in bringing them to reality. We taylor work routines to each volunteer - whether you would like to donate your time to a specific project, or mix between two or more, we can arrange it. We also try to make sure our volunteers get to have a real experience of Uganda and its cultures - to ensure you benefit from your time we us as much as we do.

If you are interested in volunteering with AASU (or know someone who might be) please visit our volunteer page or contact us. We look forward to hearing from you!