Sunday, February 28, 2010

BULA NEWSLETTER - 28 February 2010 - by Melissa Fricke

After a lapse in updates, I send you news from Uganda. I have had the great pleasure of spending another 7 weeks here visiting the children at BULA Children's Home, St. Kizito Primary School and many old friends. Andie has also joined me in the visit for 3 weeks.

While here, we congratulated the students who completed their Primary Leaving Examinations with great success. This exam is heavily regarded and greatly determines your placement in Secondary School. It is judged on a scale of 1-4; Grade 1 being a tremendous success and placement in great schools. A placement in Grade 4 may jeopardize a student's continuation of schooling thus indicating the extreme importance of the exam.

At the Children's Home, the five students who sat the exams finished with great achievements. There were four finishing in Grade 2 and one finishing in Grade 1. At St. Kizito, all students finished at Grade 2 or better. We are so proud of their success!

We now have sent off 12 children from the Children's Home to the boarding sections at Secondary School. We look forward to learning of their continued success.

At St. Kizito Primary School in Gganda, we have continued the art exchange. We love bringing back artwork to the school, so any school interested, please let us know! The students recently went on a field trip to the Entebbe Wildlife Education Center. This was done on behalf of Fellowship recipient, Mackenzie Brown, and her community's fundraising efforts. The kids had a spectacular time and even had the chance to visit the airport nearby.

Also at the school, minor repairs and maintenance have been carried out. The battery for the solar panels needed replacement while the water pump for the underground water tank also needed repair. Both have completed and we expect sustained use for both.

Andie took me to St. Kizito Primary School in Namugoona, the school awaiting our assistance. This was extremely exciting for me as I hadn't yet seen the new construction project, nor had I met all of the people involved. The School sits on a large piece of property opening the door to many possibilities in the construction. Tom Harrison and his team of architects have designed preliminary plans that we look forward to seeing develop over the coming months as we raise the necessary funds to complete the project. I will be stopping in London on my return and will have the pleasure to meet all of the individuals involved in the project. Together, we hope to provide a school truly fit for the surrounding environment.

My time here is coming to a close and I look forward to the continued work Stateside. We have a Swap Party event coming up at Mickey Felice's in Patchogue on March 3rd. Contact us for more information. More events are in the work and we will keep you posted!.

Thank you for all of your support.

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