Educate Vulnerable Children in Rural E. Uganda

Progressive report for Educate 600 Orphans in Rural Eastern Uganda
Year beginning 2016

By Onyango Joseph – Executive Director RARUDO

RARUDO is beginning the year 2016 in mighty way as we send our sincere gratitude to our dear donors who have stood with us all past years; we wish you A Happy New Year and Prosperous Future.
We are so thankful for your generous support and are excited to share our progress updates with you.

This year out of 600 children we got 23 children who passed in first grade in the last PLE 2015, 36 second grade, 102 third grade and others were promoted to upper classes primary, 2 to secondary school respectively for next academic year 2016 and one (Fredrick) at the St Laurence University who is to graduate this year.

We thank you once again for the generous support of USD.23, 000 which we received towards the end of 2015; USD 14,568.75 was spent on schooling materials for the OVCs and USD. 8,431.25 is to support women with improved vegetable seeds in this year planting season 2016 which benefits the children as well. (We shall submit the report for women with its breakdown in next quarter).

We are grateful and believe this will take us another mile in helping our children since the schools will be opening on 22/ Feb/ 2016 after the general elections.

The breakdown of USD 14,568.75 = UG X 43,520,000 being received at rate of 3,200/= per 1 USD and spent on schooling materials for the OVCs (orphans and other vulnerable children) is as below:

Schooling Materials Qty Unit Cost in UG. Shs. Amount UG. Shs
Uniforms 558 pupils 28,000 15,624,000
Exercise books 96 pgs 1 Dozen X 420 pupils 8,000 3,360,000
Black books 15 books X 89 pupils 5,200 6,942,000
Pens for 5 pens x 558 700 1,953,000
Pencils 10 pcs x 558 300 1,674,000
Geometry sets 1 x 558 6000 3,348,000
Foot Rulers 1 x 558 1500 837,000
Washing soap 2 x558 5,500 6,138,000
Slippers 558 pairs 5,500 3,069,000
Fees top up 35 students 105,000 3,675,000
Total 46,620,000 UGS

Achievements.
It is our joy that the recent made us for the first time get 23 first grades to pass the PLE, among which 5 are girls. This will benefit directly the orphans and other vulnerable children.
Tororo 268 OVCs
Busia 178 OVCs
Bugiri 112 OVCs

The overwhelming increase of the vulnerability among children due to abject poverty raises our concerns to find measures to control dire need of the support for children and their families.

Challenges:

As the schools are opening late just because of the general election which is due 18th Feb. 2016 as result of this we are anticipating late reporting back school.
All our gratitude and regards go to all our donors at Global Giving, The River Fund, Uganda government, local leaders and all well wishers for supporting our cause of bringing hope to the vulnerable community we serve most especially the young generations.

I remain yours faithfully,

Onyango Joseph
Executive Director

Project Report for Educate 600 Orphans in Rural Eastern Uganda
By Onyango Joseph: Executive Director RARUDO.

Background Information
Rayland Rural Development Organisation this year 2015 is marking 15years of existence since its inception and various achievements are realized these include Educational Support to Orphans and other Vulnerable Children (OVC), Empowering Women and Youth through Skills Training, Carrying out the Long Term HIV/AIDS Survivor Skills, Awareness and Prevention.
As an NGO we are so grateful for our certificate to be renewed by the National NGO Board and also to permit us to operate country wide for another period of 36 months (3 years).
In this we commend the government of the republic of Uganda most especially Ministry of Internal Affairs for having trusting in our organisation to serve her people. This gives us great confidence to work with all diligence and reach out to many needy population as per the availability of resources.
We shall continue to provide support to the orphans who have lost their parents or guardians and enable them to fit into the society.

ACTIVITY REPORT:
Education
Knowing very well that School-related costs are the major obstacle for children in abject poverty to access education, we are continuing to work for and vigorously demand for orphans educational rights and attain high standards of education for all Ugandan children providing them other necessities of life on regular basis so as to become better people in great nation and be able to serve their families and the society.
I take this opportunity to say that our candidate class children O’Level and A’ Level have started doing the end of year exams we have 248 candidates have started the final exams and other 352 are sitting for promotional exams.
I therefore humbly request our dear Donors, partners and well-wishers at Global Giving, The River Fund, friends from local and Global to join me as we wish our children great success in their Examinations.

Challenges
During our visit to school this quarter to see how the children are faring at schools we found that environment our children studying in is not all that good, most classes has no school desks (furniture) the children sit on the floor. The numbers of children per teacher is outnumbering, each class has over 120 instead of 35 per teacher as recommended by ministry of education. This would contribute to poor academic performance, poor hygiene at school.

Needs
Based on our findings during the visit, there is great need to scale out the resource base to create better way of providing these children with better learning environment.
There is need to have these children in one central place, in this we propose to build a primary and kindergarten school where we can take close care and support while at school.
School uniforms and scholastic materials are the basics a child needs to enable them study.

Conclusion
I give my sincere regards to all our donors at Global Giving, The River Fund, Uganda government, local leaders and all well wishers for supporting our cause of bringing hope to the vulnerable community we serve most especially the young generations.

I remain yours faithfully,
Onyango Joseph
Executive Director
RARUDO