Kibuye Project overview




AASU’s first community project is focusing on the village of Kibuye in North Eastern Kamuli, on the shores of the Victoria Nile. Kibuye has an estimated population of 60,000 people and is spread over 27 by 35km. The majority of the population is highly dependent on subsistence farming and barter trade within village in order to survive.

Before the project began, Kibuye was dependent upon one borehole for safe drinking water. Due to long lines when collecting water many have been choosing to fetch water from the river, which has caused illness through water born diseases. The village also only has one school, consisting of two classrooms accommodating roughly 600 children. The children that can’t walk the distance to the school simply don’t attend. The majority of children do not attend school, either due to distance or family circumstance, consequentially 80% of Ugandans over the age of 15 are illiterate.

So far within the Kibuye project AASU has been able to buy four acres of land at the East end of the village on which we have built a bore hole and are currently building classrooms for the Arise and Shine Nursery and Primary School which is due to open for the start of the school year in February 2011.

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Results time at AASU Nursery & Primary School




As we mentioned previously, the 18th of April marked the end of our first term at Arise and Shine Nursery & Primary School. Before term finished, our pupils took their end of term exams.  We decided to set the bar high from the outset, with our students taking the ‘National Standard Exam’ which dictates the country wide standard for students studying in town schools across Uganda. It is not unusual for students studying in villages to receive an easier version of this exam, however, at Arise and Shine Uganda, we want our students to be given the best possible chances in life and able to compete with the rest of the country, not just with ‘village people’. Therefore, we have chosen to educate them to a national level, which may appear difficult to begin with but which will stand our students in good stead in the long run.

As our students have never been examined before, and given the high quality of examination given to them, we were unsure as to how well they would do, or how their parents would react (if students performed badly, it’s possible parents may not take into consideration the difficulty of the exam and would instead blame the school for not teaching their children properly). However, students surpassed our expectations and parents were thrilled to see the high standard we were setting for their children!

The examinations were completed by 50 students, spread between Nursery and Primary 3 level. All students took 7 exams in the following subjects: Literacy 1 (Science), Literacy 2 (Social Studies), Mathematics, English Language, Luganda Language, Writing and Reading.

The students’ performances in all these subjects were beyond our anything we could have hoped for and overall all we met national average level, much to the delight of Arise and Shine Uganda and the children’s parents!

Some of the parents even asked for extra examination papers and news reached us that they were showing it and bragging, about the high standard of the examinations and excellent performances of their children, to other parents in and around the Kibuye trading centre.

Arise and Shine Nursery & Primary School staff, teachers and parents are so proud of our students and believe we will do even better next term.

AASU would like to say a big congratulations to all at Arise and Shine Nursery & Primary School (staff, students and parents), we’re very proud of you!

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