The One School at a Time Blog

Educational Aids

2012-02-28T08:05:00.000-08:00

Diagram on an exterior wall, Kukanga School, 2009.

(Click photos to make bigger)

Teachers at rural Ugandan schools, like Kukanga, make use of everything that they can get their hands on to create teaching materials. Imagine walking into your child's school in the U.S. and finding a teacher painting a diagram of an egg on a hallway wall. Imagine the teachers sitting around drinking coffee in a staff room like the one in the photo above, or walking miles to school on muddy dirt roads. And yet, despite these challenges, they deliver an excellent education in fundamentals to the kids they teach. I daresay that many of these kids have a better grounding in basic mathematics that many of our kids receive based both on my experience as a parent and a college teacher. Imagine how much difference a few extra teaching resources can make for teachers who are this dedicated, and students who don't take their educations for granted.

On a more mundane note, part of the purpose of this blog is to spread the word about the work that One School at a Time is accomplishing in Ugandan schools. It would be great if you could help spread the word by "following" the blog and by sharing it on your favorite social media sites--just click the share buttons below. Thanks for reading!

A teacher using twine to hang teaching materials.

Classroom materials.

Learning aids in a Kukanga classroom.

A Witch Doctor and a Broken Ankle

2012-02-21T07:31:00.000-08:00

This young boy was unsuccessfully treated by a village witch doctor.

Post from Uganda by One School Director Bay Roberts.

This young athlete was preparing for a football (soccer) competition at his rural primary school in Uganda a fewmonths ago. He was the star player and expected to bring glory and success tohis school in the upcoming game. An unanticipated encounter with a hole in theplaying field caused him to break his ankle during practice that day. HusseinTadesse, One School Program Manager, had just arrived in a rental car and wasready to take this boy to an International Hospital in Kampala (a 4 hour journey)for care. Villagers in this remote area were skeptical and insisted the boyreceive treatment from the local witch doctor. Three months later, you can seethe results. This boy is now lame.

Result of ineffective treatment.

Bay e-mailed me the above information along with the following, which I am just going to post here verbatim. One School at a Time recognizes that it can't help every needy individual that one encounters when traveling in Uganda, but at times our ability to provide life-changing aid with a small amount of money (for us) is difficult to ignore. If you'd like to specifically help this young man get his leg treated please consider donating HERE and then send an e-mail to One School and let them know that your donation is intended for this purpose. Thanks!

From Bay...

Hey ken, would it be inappropriate to see if anyone outthere would be interested in assisting this boy to get med care in kampala? Ibet if they break it again and reset it, he would be fine. He is an orphan. Notsure if I should add that. I'm working on other avenues to get him some help.Just hate to see this kid's whole life ruined because of something that can beeasily fixed with western medicine.

Here is one more photo, taken by Hussein and sent to me by Bay today (23 Feb) of this boy when he originally injured himself.

Hygiene and Culture

2012-02-14T07:27:00.000-08:00

Young women carrying water near the Kyamulinga School.

Another post from Bay Roberts, One School at a Time Director, who is traveling in Uganda.

Sometimes, when I am in Uganda working for One School at aTime, I stay as a guest in the homes of locals. Recently, I had such anopportunity. The family I stayed with had just managed to buy a home in thesuburbs of Kampala. They have all the trappings of the American Dream- a home,a car, a garage, and a mortgage. The home has electricity and running water(although no one dares drink it- they boil it first and then chill it in thesmall fridge). The wife no longer has to bake cakes in a wood oven, now that she hasan electric stove--but she still does: theelectricity is too expensive. They even have a toilet.

I was really happy aboutthat because my knees are no good anymore- like many of us, it is hard for me to squat! Inoticed after the first night, that no one seemed to be using the toilet - justme. I wondered about that and later found a full-scale latrine in the backyard. Turns out that the toilet is just for show and for the rare occasion ofa "mazungu" (white visitor).

The first morning, I was wondering to myself when if everI could get some hot water for my tea. The women of the household had asked merepeatedly if I was going to bathe. Since I had had a very cold (no hot water)shower the night before, I had decided I was clean enough for the time being.Finally, the wife came to me and told me "Bay, you must go bathe. We willnot serve you tea until you are clean!"

Later, she made sure to inform methat women and girls should bathe themselves two to three times a day. Such cleanliness is an important part of the culture here, especially among women. Bathing aside, meals are always begun with hand washing, frequently in a plastic basin using soap presented by one of the young girls of a household on her knees before the men.

Report from Uganda: Jane and the 330 Layers

2012-02-11T07:02:00.000-08:00

Jane Kibuuka, head of the Kukanga School, with some local ground nuts (peanuts).

Bay Roberts, One School at a Time director, is currently traveling with her family in Uganda, where Internet access is spotty. I just received the following report from her.

Jane Kibuuka, head teacher of Kukanga Government PrimarySchool, is a government employee. This would indicate that she should be paidreliably- unless Jane is a Ugandan government employee, which changes thepicture entirely! Jane had not been paid her full teacher's salary for years.She had visited the government offices, at considerable personal expense, repeatedlyover those years to request her full pay. After a few months, she even triedbribery, but that did not resolve the situation. Hussein Tadesse, One SchoolProgram Manager, accompanied Jane on a recent trip to the government officesand stood quietly while Jane made her request again. This time, Jane wassuccessful and soon received all her back pay. The lump sum was great enoughthat she was able to invest in a home-based poultry business. Here is herchicken house (below) and here is one of the chickens she cooked for us on arecent visit (also below).

Corruption is part of daily life in Uganda, but with thecorrect pressure, it is possible to overcome.

Jane's chicken house.

Chicken being prepared for visitors.

Jane with school placards, Kukanga.

Kyamulinga Student

2012-02-08T07:40:00.000-08:00

Kyamulinga student in classroom doorway.

Kyamulinga was the One School's last partnership, and we continue to maintain a relationship with the school. This photograph was taken in 2009 at the school. The building construction is typical--mud over a stick framework. One of the priorities for many schools is to build more durable classrooms from brick and mortar. One School helps with this by providing the cement, while the local school communities make the bricks and construct the buildings. To contribute to this endeavor, go to the One School website.

Still no word from Bay Roberts, the One School director, and her family, who are traveling in Uganda right now. If I hear anything, I'll post it!

Murchison Falls and Hemingway

2012-02-02T13:34:00.000-08:00

Murchison Falls, on the Nile River.

(Click for larger version)

Uganda isn't all rural settlements and urban sprawl. Several national parks protect spectacular natural ecosystems and landforms, including the Rwenzori Mountains, also called the Mountains of the Moon, the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, home to mountain gorillas, Murchison Falls, pictured above, and others.

At Murchison Falls, the Victoria Nile roars through a narrow chute and over a nearly 150 foot high precipice before proceeding calmly on its crocodile-infested way through grasslands, savanna, and forests, where large herds of giraffe, elephants, ungulates, and other African wildlife are making a comeback. Tour companies in Kampala offer reasonable packages for visits to the park, which include stays in tent camps or more luxurious lodges. Boat rides up the river to the base of the falls are available, with fantastic wildlife viewing opportunities.

Sadly, most of the kids who attend One School partner schools, have never visited a national park. The cost of traveling and staying is too high. National parks are a middle class luxury.

Interestingly, Ernest Hemingway almost died at Murchison Falls in 1954 as a result of two successive plane crashes. The first augured him in at the base of the falls when his plane hit an abandoned pole and crashed. Injured (head wound), he and his wife, Mary, also injured (broken ribs), boarded a second plane in an attempt to return to Entebbe for treatment; that plane exploded on takeoff, giving him a concussion and leakage of cerebral fluid. Both Hemingway and Mary eventually made it to Entebbe where they were able to read obituaries that had already been written for him. (See Wikipedia for details)

A few more images from Murchison Falls National Park are below.

Cape Buffalo

Elephant

Nile Crocodile

Hippos

Ringing the Bell

2012-01-26T05:45:00.000-08:00

The school bell at Kyamulinga.

(Click for bigger image)

All over rural Uganda classes begin and end with the ringing of the school bell, just like here in the U.S. The difference is that their bells are more innovative than ours. At my daughter's school, kids rush from the playground into class when they hear the electronically induced buzzing of a bell controlled from the school's office by the teaching staff. The kids throw a bunch of basketballs and soccer balls into a big metal bin on their way into the sprawling brick building to begin their day. In rural Uganda, a designated child bell-ringer picks up a stone and beats on an old truck wheel hanging from a tree by a bicycle chain. Kids in the midst of a sandlot soccer game leave their "ball" behind--usually a collection of plastic bags shaped into a sphere and bound with vines or twine. Girls jumping rope (also often made with vines) stop their game and head into the stick and mud-walled classroom, where the learning begins. Many of these kids thrive despite the lack of expensive facilities. I remain convinced that if one could combine their ability to innovate with the resources that our kids have in the U.S., they would shine even more.

One School at a Time builds partnerships at schools like Kyamulinga and Kukanga to help kids move themselves forward while encouraging the strengths (like innovation) that they already have.

Mazungu!

2012-01-16T06:33:00.000-08:00

A crowd in Kampala's business district.

Blog post for Martin Luther King Day by Bay Roberts, One School's director.

Everywhere we go in Uganda, we hear the word Mazungu! Ioriginally thought that the word mazungu meant white person, such as” Look atthat white person going by, my lord their skin is so white!” But later, I cameto learn that the meaning is more nuanced. My daughter, who is Chinese, is alsoa mazungu. An African American is a mazungu. anyone who is not African is amazungu, no exceptions. I know that many visitors to Africa find this offensivebut I think it’s honest. In the United States, on first glance, we identify aperson’s race and gender, but we don’t shout out black women! Asian man!Mexican girl! because in our culture that would be inappropriate. We just keepthat to ourselves, but it is there. In our minds there is a constant dialogue “Thisperson is black, she’s Chinese, he is Indian and so on”.

When I was living in Seattle, our neighbors were a largeextended black family. Indeed there were so many people living there that weoften could not keep track of them all. One time, I went over for something andthe woman who answered the door thought I was my roommate, Caroline. I’m 5’8inches tall and Caroline is probably 5’1”. She is tiny and I’m not. To me, it’shard to imagine how anyone could not tell us apart. But the black women whoanswered the door said “ You are not Caroline? Oh never mind, I can’t tell youwhite people apart!” And the funny thing was she was speaking the truth, forCaroline and I too- we were just too politically correct to admit it.

So when I am traveling in Africa and someone shouts“mazungu!” I choose to revel in my shocking whiteness and admit to myself thatit is sometimes hard for me to differentiate between all those black faces!

Here's to Concrete!

2012-01-14T05:40:00.000-08:00

One School's Hussein Tadesse helps guide a rented car past a rough spot on the way to Kyamulinga.

There was an interesting article by Charles Kenny recently in Foreign Policy Magazine about why concrete is good. This may not seem intuitive to many of us who live in a world that feels overly covered in the stuff, but if you live in rural Africa, a little bit of concrete can improve your health and your ability to get to school or get goods to market. In the area where One School has been working for the last few years, all of the roads are dirt, and in the rainy season they turn to impassable slop. Classrooms usually have dirt floors, and students often "smear" them -- apply cow dung -- to keep the dust down. Imagine sending your barefoot child to a school each morning where the floors are coated in cow dung!

One School has helped local communities build new classrooms with concrete floors, reducing worm problems and creating a cleaner, dust-free learning environment. Click the link to read the article -- it's short and thought provoking.

Students walk to school along a typical rural dirt road. Not bad in the dry season, but terrible when wet.

Students sweep a classroom floor, raising dust, at the Kukanga School.

A student enjoys a concrete floor in a classroom at Kyamulinga that One School helped fund.

I want to go to school!

2012-01-04T08:08:00.000-08:00

This young woman walks 6 miles to school each day when a ride is not available or the roads are bad.

(Click photos to make bigger)

Can you imagine your 10-year-old begging you to let her go to school in the morning? Or your young teenager bursting into tears because they might not be able to attend classes for lack of school fees. Here in the U.S., most of our kids take their educations for granted. School is often seen as a chore that must be endured. In Uganda, kids, perhaps even more than adults, recognize that their education is critical if they are to succeed, and success vs. the status quo is not an abstract concept for them. Success means escaping from a subsistence lifestyle with economic and physical well-being vulnerable to everything from the price of a pig to climate change. For girls, the status quo is likely to mean early marriage, children, and a life spent caring for them with limited resources.

Kids in Uganda take their educations seriously. They study at night by tiny LED lights or kerosene. They attend special classes on weekends if they have the chance, to help them get ahead. They grieve when school is taken away from them.

This morning I dragged my daughter out of bed at 7 a.m., reminded her that she needed to hurry and get ready while I fixed her a waffle in our electric toaster as she read a Harry Potter book by one of the many lights burning in our living room. She made it out the door on time, not complaining, but not begging to go either. I wonder what Ugandan students would think if they could watch our morning routines?

A student reads by the light of an LED bulb powered by a AA battery.

A doorway at a student dormitory.

The Pride of Mango Trees

2011-12-21T07:03:00.000-08:00

A mango grove near the Kyamulinga School, Uganda.

Article from the One School at a Time newsletter, October 2011.

Kukanga School planted 168 mango trees this June, 2011. Hussein, One School Program Manager, trained the teachers how to care for the trees. Each tree was assigned to a student to water and care for it. The students love their trees so much. Each student has named their tree and is keeping a tree journal to document its care and development. So far, only one tree has flowered. The student who cares for that tree was heartbroken when he was told by the teacher to remove the flower (which would permit the tree to put more energy into its roots). Of course, this student wanted HIS tree to produce fruit first! After much coaxing and tears the teacher had to pluck the flower after school hours to soften the blow to the child.

Jane Kibuuka, Kukanga School head teacher, arranged a meeting with the school neighbors to give each family a mango tree and to ask them to keep their livestock (cows, goats, pigs, etc.) tied up. The neighbors made a rule amongst themselves that the owner of any animal harming the school garden and tree nursery would be responsible for reimbursing the school for the replacement costs. So far, not a single tree has been grazed and every single one of them is growing and prospering. The school plans to fence the trees soon for further protection from grazing animals.

In 2 1/2 years, the trees will fruit. Each tree could potentially produce over 100 mangoes/year. Each mango can be sold for about 20 cents. A harvest of 16,800 mangoes will potentially generate over $3,300 a year. These funds can be used to pay the security guard, cook, and bursar; replenish supplies in the girl's sanitary kit; maintain water systems and new classrooms; purchase educational and sport supplies; host events; and provide bonuses to teachers. The mango project will permit the Kukanga School to eventually become financially self-sufficient--no longer dependent on funds from outside sources, but standing strong and resilient on its own!

Bicycles in Uganda

2011-12-17T06:25:00.000-08:00

Fetching water near the Kyamulinga School.

Few in rural Uganda can afford to buy a car or even a motorcycle. During the rainy season, roads become such a muddy mess that even if you have a car it's difficult to use it. Consequently, bicycles are an important means of transportation, and one sees them everywhere, often powered by children almost too small to reach the pedals and not infrequently loaded with unimaginably large piles of goods. Old single speed bicycles on dusty red-dirt roads make a classic scene in Uganda and elsewhere in Africa.

Beside the highway near Kampala.

At Joel's house. Joel owns the Kyamulinga School.

Kids at home with their bike.

Morning trip to the water hole.

Hauling milk on the outskirts of Kampala.

School Uniforms

2011-12-13T05:02:00.000-08:00

Student with pencil box, Kukanga School (Click for larger version)

This post is by Bay Roberts, Director of One School at a Time.

One of thebiggest problems for parents in developing countries is paying their children'sschool fees. One School at a TimeProgram Manager, Hussein Tadesse, often mentions how thankful he is that he hasa job and that all 3 of his children are in school. Before working for One School, Hussein's children missed ayear of school because he couldn't afford the fees.

Publicschools in Uganda are free, but parents often prefer to send their children toprivate schools which may have better facilities and smaller class sizes. Evenif parents send their child to a public school, there are other costs theystruggle to pay, including the cost of a school uniform. Gregory Dunn, a 15year old One School volunteer fromPalo Alto, California, shared with us a vivid memory of his month-long stay atthe Kukanga School, Uganda, last summer. Each school day, he told us, a 7thgrade girl diligently attended class in a uniform that she had grown out of theyear before. Clearly, her parents could not afford to purchase her a newuniform. The zipper in the back of her uniform had broken and she had done herbest to tie it closed. Even with this embarrassment, she was determined to getan education.

Girls oftendrop out of school because they lack a school uniform. Historically, studentswho do not wear uniforms can be sent home at the discretion of theprincipal. Girls may solve this problem by finding a "sugar daddy,"an older man with money who will pay for a her school uniform as long as shesleeps with him. Girls may suffergreatly for this strategy- older men are more likely to be infected with HIVthan younger ones. (A striking feature of HIV is that women from the ages of 15to 19 are 5 times more likely to be infected than young men in the same cohort-pg 114, Poor Economics).

A studyprofiled by the MIT Poverty Action Lab examined the impact of providing freeschool uniforms to Kenyan girls and boys.The study showed that students significantly reduced absenteeism as a result ofreceiving the school uniforms, and their test scores improved. Another studydocumented that teenage pregnancy rates in schools where uniforms were offeredto girls fell from 14 to 11 % after one year (pg 115, Poor Economics).

Seeminglysmall interventions can have hugely positive effects!

Africa Rising - The Economist

2011-12-11T08:22:00.001-08:00

Street scene, Kampala, Uganda

"Africa Rising" is the cover story of a recent issue of The Economist (December 3-9), and there are three major articles in the magazine about economic growth (or lack thereof) in Africa. The first article, Africa Rising, provides a slew of statistics about Africa as a whole, many of which may be surprising to you. A key quote:

"Over the past decade, six of the world's ten fastest-growing countries were African. In eight of the past ten years, Africa has grown faster than East Asia, including Japan. Even allowing for the knock-on effect of the northern hemisphere's slowdown, the IMF expects Africa to grow by 6% this year and nearly 6% in 2012, about the same as Asia."

This first article notes that Africa will benefit from demographic changes occurring on the continent, and that investment by China (eager to secure access to African resources) is spurring improvement in infrastructure, one of the huge impediments to economic growth on the continent.

Other facts: there are more than 600 million mobile phone users in Africa, more than in the U.S; productivity is increasing faster than ours; half the increase in global population over the next four decades will be in Africa.

The article recognizes that all is not rosy in Africa, with ubiquitous poverty, short lifespans, slumping food production, and negative impacts from climate change. But it suggests that there is great promise for growth in Africa.

The second, more detailed article, called "The sun shines bright," gives a more detailed view, with graphics that break out some of the statistics by country. It quotes the World Bank which says, "Africa could be on the brink of an economic take-off, much like China was 30 years ago and India 20 years ago," while noting that poverty alleviation will require higher growth rates (7%) than we are seeing now.

While average growth is high, many countries, including Uganda, are lagging. African growth engines include the Mediterranean countries (i.e., Algeria, Libya, Tunisia) and southern African countries (i.e., South Africa, Namibia, Botswana), but many countries lag in GDP growth: Uganda (0.4%), Kenya (0.9%), Ethiopia (0.4%), and Tanzania (0.5%) among them.

Importantly, the article suggests that,

"In all sorts of ways African governments need to run their countries more efficiently, more accountably and less intrusively. They also need to offer much better schooling, an area in which Africa woefully lags behind Asia. African business men constantly complain about the shortage of skills...Without better education, Africa cannot hope to emulate the Asian miracle." [Emphasis mine]

Finally, in an interesting article on aid (The big push back), the magazine contrasts the view that for aid to work it must be large and all-encompassing (the "big push" philosophy) with the idea that targeted aid to remove specific growth barriers is just as effective, if not more so. The article concludes that, "so far, the project provides little evidence that 'big push' development--advancing on all fronts, flags flying--is better than the alternative: gradual, step-by-step changes to remove specific barriers to growth."

One School at a Time works hard to help lower the barriers to growth in Uganda by helping children get better educations.

TED Talk on Reporting and NGOs

2011-12-03T08:26:00.001-08:00

If you haven't seen this TED Talk, it's worth a look. In it, Leslie Dodson makes many good points, including the ideas that much reporting treats Africa like a monolith or a single "country," and also that reporting (and NGOs) often emphasizes the tragedies in Africa while overlooking the good things that are happening there because those stories aren't as compelling.

World AIDS Day

2011-12-03T05:15:00.001-08:00

A placard on the ground of the Kyamulinga School

Thursday, December 1 was World AIDS Day. AIDS was first diagnosed in Uganda in 1982 and it spread quickly from Lake Victoria, through urban centers, and along highways to rural areas. In cities, the infection rate reached 29% before a strong government response and the deaths of many original sufferers began to lower it. Today the rate in Uganda is about 5.4%, but growing slowly again, perhaps in part due to complacency caused by the lower rate. Every student in Uganda is affected either directly or indirectly by this disease. Children sing heartbreaking songs about lost friends and relatives. Schools play a role in fighting AIDS by providing specific information to students that they might otherwise not receive.

A student's notebook at the Kyamulinga School.

Jane with one of the many placards used at schools.

Music

2011-11-29T05:33:00.001-08:00

Classroom drummers at the Kyamulinga School.

As it is here in the U.S., music is enormously important for school kids in Uganda. The big difference is that they make their own rather than sampling songs from itunes and feeding them into their ears through "buds" wired to expensive MP3 players. At recess time, spontaneous music making erupts in empty classrooms or from beneath shade trees on school grounds, and those that aren't making the music dance to it. When I visited Uganda in 2009 I was drawn to the drumming session, pictured above, in one of the Kyamulinga classrooms. The room was full of boys, so into their music that they didn't really care about the big white guy in the room, so I fired away with my camera and a flash for a few minutes, but then stopped and just enjoyed the rhythms and the dancing.

In much of rural Uganda, resources are scarce and the toys that American kids take for granted can't be had. And even if they were, there is no electricity to make them work. We often look upon this from our vantage point with the sense that these kids are "underprivileged," suffering for want of all the fantastic diversions that are so easy for us to obtain, but I don't think this is true. Yes, in the realm of educational opportunity, living conditions, and even food security, there are serious needs that many kids suffer for lack of, but play is not one of them, and the richness in improvised games and the pure joy that results from a bunch of guys beating out masterful drum sessions in empty classrooms while their friends dance is a need that our kids probably don't even know they have.

The Mentally Ill in Africa

2011-11-27T06:02:00.001-08:00

A mentally ill, but functional mother of twins (right) is

able to live with her family near the Kyamulinga School.

There was a disturbing story in the NYT Lens Blog this week about the plight of the mentally ill in Africa, documented by a photographer named Robin Hammond. While covering the independence referendum in South Sudan, Robin visited a prison where he was shown a mentally ill man shackled to the floor, naked. Robin felt that the only way he could justify photographing this voiceless man was to take up the cause of the mentally ill in Africa. He has since photographed the plight of mentally ill people in several African countries, including Uganda, and is raising funds to continue his work in West Africa.

In Mr. Hammond's words, from his emphas.is fundraising page:

"Wars, famines and natural disasters not only leave the dead to be buried but survivors to go on living. While many will have come through the crisis with their bodies intact, the same cannot always be said of their minds. In the last 50 years, sub-Saharan Africa has seen more of these crises than anywhere else in the world. Their legacy is mental illness on a grand scale with almost no resources to treat it."

"Conflict and disaster diverts funds away from health and education. For the mentally ill, hospitals become prisons and ignorance results in stigma and neglect. Care often relies on the use of forcible restraints in both institutions and homes. The mentally ill are often accused of being possessed or branded as witches. Spiritual healers are regularly employed to ‘deliver’ them. They are often chained and sometimes starved so as not to feed the demon inside them. The mentally ill really are cursed, not by God but by the societies around them. I’ve spent my career documenting human rights issues but I’ve never come across a more neglected or vulnerable group than the mentally disabled in African countries that are in, or recovering from, crises."

You can view other photographs and a video on Mr. Hammond's website.

Equity - we are the 1%

2011-11-23T05:01:00.001-08:00

Students at the Kyamulinga School in rural Uganda

Bay Roberts, who wrote this post, is one of the directors of One School at a Time.

People often ask me why I do the work of One School.Why bother helping these Ugandan children who are so far away? Why not justhelp kids right here in the United States?

I do this work because of the profound difference inequity between African and American children. Education for most Ugandan children doesn’teven come close to what our children, even in poor areas, receive. Should a Ugandan child be penalized and have opportunityreduced just because they happened to be born in Africa? Does achild deserve a better education just by virtue of where they were born?

All children have the right to go to school. All children should go to a school withbathroom facilities, educational materials, professional teachers, goodsecurity, safely constructed classrooms, and access to clean drinking water.Most Ugandan children (especially girls) do not even finish the 7th grade. Ifthey are lucky enough to be enrolled in school, the school typically hasunacceptable bathroom facilities, few to no educational materials, untrainedteachers who frequently are absent, no security, dangerous classrooms that mayfall down, and no clean drinking water. Why should some children, based onwhere they were born, have all these things while other children do not? Thereis something wrong with a world where distribution of wealth is so painfullyinequitable. Here in the U.S., the Occupy Wall Street Movement is demonstratingagainst the 1% of our population who have all the wealth. I want to expand thistheme to a world view- in this case, we in the U.S. are the 1% and thedeveloping countries are the 99%.

After we adopted our daughter, Emi, from China, I experienceda profound paradigm shift. If Emi, with her beautiful Chinese face, was mydaughter, this meant that any child in the world could by my child- any child in the world could be mine.After this realization, the circumstances of most children in the world becameunbearable to me. Each one of these precious children could be my child…so howcould I blissfully ignore the conditions of the 99% while I enrolled mydaughter in the best private schools here in Colorado?

The work I do with One School is my way to try to makesome small shift in resources towards the 99%. Join with me in this beautifulwork.

Water and Schools

2011-11-16T05:24:00.001-08:00

Solar heated water, Kyamulinga School, Uganda

One huge issue for many schools in rural Uganda is the lack of on-site water. The implications of this might not even occur to many of us in the U.S.; imagine an entire primary school without a place to get a drink of water, wash one's hands, or draw water for cooking lunch and cleaning the dishes afterwards. But the implications go far beyond the inconvenience of no running water. A school full of kids needs water to function, so kids, mostly girls, are given the task of hiking to muddy ponds where they fill 5-gallon jugs with water shared with livestock and sometimes laced with parasites. For girls this means missing classes, enduring vulnerability to assault, and toiling to haul the heavy water back to school. For all of the kids, this means having to use dirty water.

How can this problem be solved? It's not that hard, but it requires a little cash, primarily for cement and pumps, and a lot of hard work, which the school communities are eager to contribute. At the Kyamulinga School, a recent One School partner, we helped purchase building supplies and the school community dug a hole and built a brick cistern to catch the plentiful rain that falls during the rainy season. The kids use a treadle pump to move the water from the cistern to holding tanks. To this was added a solar hot water heater that drains to a spigot where kids can wash their hands with hot, clean water. At Kukanga, One School's current partner school, we again worked with the school community to build a cistern and infrastructure to catch rainwater.

Such seemingly small changes make a huge difference for all of the kids that attend these schools, but especially for the girls who no longer have to hike and wade to water holes and endure the threat of violence.

Changing Climate and Coffee

2011-11-12T05:38:00.001-08:00

Coffee beans near Kyamulinga, Uganda

An interesting article aired Thursday on Public Radio International's show, "The World," described increasingly serious problems that Ugandan and other East African farmers are having maintaining healthy coffee trees. Coffee is a major export crop for Uganda (about $450 million per year according to this article from Reuters, half of Uganda's export dollars) and an important source of cash for many small Ugandan farmers. Coffee requires a predictable and narrow range of temperature and rainfall conditions. Increased severity of droughts and floods, and slowly increasing temperatures, thought to be related to climate change, has reduced bean production and is contributing to more diseases in coffee trees. Farmers can adapt to some changes, for example by growing coffee under shade trees, but it is widely believed that changes will eventually overwhelm the farmers' ability to adapt and wipe out huge areas of coffee production.

Here in the United States and in other parts of the developed world, we often argue about climate change from an abstract, political perspective, but what many don't understand is that if you are a subsistence farmer in a developing nation like Uganda, a single crop failure is disastrous, wiping out your only source of income for an entire year. Without the small infusion of cash from selling a few bags of coffee beans, you may not be able to buy enough food to eat, let alone pay tuition for children to attend school. Many families rely on these tenuous sources of income and for them, changes in the pattern of rain and drought are catastrophic.

The PRI article ends with a quote from a Ugandan farmer praying for divine intervention because "coffee farmers can't control the weather." Sadly, the weather may be out of control precisely because we have chosen not to keep change in check by reducing our carbon emissions in the developed world.

Hussein and Shamsha -- Girl's Rights

2011-11-10T05:03:00.000-08:00

This image (click on images for larger version) is of the first page of a letter (transcribed at the bottom of this post) from Shamsha, one of Hussein Tadesse's nieces. Hussein manages One School at a Time's programs in Uganda, and lives in Mbale, near the Uganda-Kenya border. He is a passionate advocate for girl's education in Uganda, and is the "uncle" that Shamsha refers to in the letter. One School is proud of the work Hussein does for us and of his commitment to girl's rights.

Here's Hussein at a coffee shop in Kampala...

Back to Shamsha--she is a 13-year-old girl, daughter of one of Hussein's brothers. Her parents decided to marry her off in exchange for money. Shamsha protested and was punished by her family, who took away all of her clothes except for the school uniform she was wearing. The situation was unbearable for her, so she went to Hussein's house, and he took her in. Shamsha is now being sponsored by Patty Gilbert, a One School director.

Here's her letter:

Re: WHY I REFUSED GETTINGMARRIED

Ihumbly write this letter, informing you as to why I refused gettingmarried. First of all I can tell you theway I felt when they were going to give me out. I felt like committing suicide, running away from home, asking myselfweather that is my mother or father and I never knew anything but I just heardmy sister and neighbours toking as to how I was going to get married. Both my parents wanted me to get married butfor me I refused, me to refuse made every one at home to hate me. I remained alone and I was used with thesituation but later I went to my uncle and I told him my problem he told me itOK. I was somehow fine but not allthat. Later my uncle rescued me fromgetting married. I thank him very much.

Irefused to get married because I wanted to finish my studies until universityso that I can get a good job and be a responsible person in future. I am glad to have such an uncle. I thank my uncle who rescued me from gettingmarried and I thank also my sponsor for whatever she have given to me am veryhappy and am even doing well in school. In our home we are six children. Me am the 4^th born and am 14 years old. We are Muslims wherethat they say a Muslim girl should be given out at 13 years as a culture whereas I refused. I am happy with all of you people. Thanks for rescuing me fromgetting married.

Yours faithfully,

Shamsha Ibriahim

2011-11-06T15:12:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the One School at a Time blog! We're a small non-profit organization based in Boulder, Colorado that works with rural Ugandan schools to help them provide a better education to the children in each school community. One School is unique because we believe that the only way to facilitate sustainable improvement is to work closely with each local community. We partner with schools that are already committed to improvement, and we help them build the capacity to reach their goals. It is the local community that makes our projects successful and sustainable. There are too many examples in Africa of projects that look successful upon completion but then revert to dysfunction after an NGO has left because the community was not involved. Also, because we are a small group of dedicated volunteers, we are able to use 96% of our income directly for our projects in Uganda.

This blog will be dedicated to highlighting One School activities, telling the stories of the kids that go to our partner schools, and posting any other information that is relevant to life and education in Uganda. We hope you'll follow the blog, spread the work, friend us on facebook, and do whatever you can to help us keep doing our work.