Yesterday, Monday 8 August 2016, I visited the four schools in the remote rural parish of Akanyo (about 45 minutes drive from Nebbi, mostly on unmade roads - i.e. very bumpy) - St. Thomas Aquinas Secondary School, St. John Bosco Nursery and Primary School, St. Mary's Primary School and St. Joseph's Primary School.
The visits were both eye opening and humbling. I thought I was prepared for the visits having read so many applications for funding for school buildings the Overseas Aid & Development Commission receives each year and the project reports showing the lasting changes a few thousand pounds makes. The impact of seeing the conditions first hand, hearing from the teaching staff the challenges they face and meeting with the pupils so eager to learn and grateful that they have somewhere they can call school.
As I make visited to the eighteen other schools the Diocese of Nebbi maintains the conditions and challenges I saw yesterday will no doubt be repeated time and again and so leave me and the staff here at Caritas with some difficult choices about how to prioritise the resources and sources of possible future funding that may be available. I am sure I am not alone in having attended courses where the "lifeboat game" is used to focus on prioritising limited resources. I now face a very real "lifeboat game".
I think the following photographs underline the needs (the classrooms are as I saw them but the children's faces hopefully show the desire to learn) ...
St. Thomas Aquinas School - a typical classroom and dormitory and the pupils
St. John Bosco - classrooms (exterior and interior) and the pupils
St. Joseph's - some of the pupils in their classrooms
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