On the Ground: A new look for MEND!

Yesterday was an exciting day at MEND.  Our 13 seamstresses received their own MEND team t-shirts!  Singing and dancing as the shirts were distributed, the women expressed their excitement to sport them around Gulu.

Some of them explained the reason for their celebration:
“I look so smart and now we will all be in uniform.  I’m so glad that the people in Gulu will know that I work for MEND.  MEND helps me stand strong in my place and family.” Aber Rose, MEND seamstress

“The t-shirts will help people know that we work for MEND.  The main thing is that it is good for people to know we are working.  We are so happy to receive the shirts.” Lamurai Milka, MEND seamstress

We couldn’t leave the facility without another smile from Rose.  “This one is good,” she said, pointing to her shirt.  “I like it so much!”

We like it too, Rose.  Cue the dance party!

-Malorie

S4S Update: Girls’ dorm nearly complete at Lacor Secondary School!

Check out a photo taken in August of what will be a 180-girl dormitory at Lacor Secondary School.  Now, look at the photo to its right and see the massive changes made to the dormitory, all in just one month!

August:

September:

Using funds from Round 4, S4S invested more than $53,000 USD into the third phase of the project, focusing heavily on completing the top floor.  This included everything from adding a roof, to painting and plastering, and installing an electrical system.

The project was well worth the hard work.  Because of your efforts, the external and physical structure of the dormitory is complete! The next step will be finishing internal work and the addition of a laundry and washroom.

Before we know it, the girls at Lacor SS will be enjoying their new dormitory!

S4S Update: Girls dorm at Awere

The first floor of the girls dorm at Awere SS is ready for residents

“This is heaven!” squealed a young girl as she ran into the new dormitory at Awere Secondary School. As part of our on-going efforts with Awere SS, the IC S4S team completed the first phase of a dormitory structure using Round 3 funding. The bottom story of the dorm cost roughly $170,000 US and once we secure funding, construction of the second-half of the structure will start back up. Once completed, the dorm will comfortably house 192 girls and will be fully furnished with bunk beds, lighting, and power.

As we mentioned in earlier posts, Awere students have just returned to their school’s original site after being displaced for more than 18 years—kind of a big deal.

When we told the girls they would be moving into a brand new dormitory, they were jumping up and down with huge smiles plastered on their faces.  Their reaction only motivated us more to finish the structure so that these girls can enjoy their brand new home.

–The S4S Team

S4S Update: Head Teacher workshop completed

Teachers from our partner schools attend a professional development workshop in Gulu

On Thursday, 43 teachers from our 11 partner schools gathered in Gulu for a training workshop.  The workshop, led by a non-IC facilitator, focused on teaching mid-level school administrators about monitoring and evaluation strategies.  This is not the first workshop the S4S Education Department has organized.

Earlier in the year, S4S conducted a training workshop with our 11 Head Teachers on developing their supervision and management skills.  We wanted to provide them with helpful tips and tricks that they could pass on to staff within their departments.  To do this, we first found out what the teachers were struggling with, what info they were seeking, and then we found facilitators to lead workshops in those areas.

The first training was so beneficial that the teachers requested we do it again. Wanting to spread the wealth for this current workshop, we decided to focus on Department Heads and the 11 teachers holding the position of Director of Studies, knowing that these people could easily spread information throughout their schools.

The training was a huge success and attracted a healthy turn out.  We’ll keep you updated on progress and how the staff use these skills within their schools.

—The S4S Team

S4S Update: Contractors, are you professional enough to work with us?

Some of the dozens of pre-qualification documents that contractors submitted to S4S recently.

No student deserves to sit under a roof that might fall.  Schools for Schools settles for nothing less than the most professional structures contractors can build.  Because of our high standards, we need to pre-qualify the contractors who work with us.  Pre-qualifying a contractor basically means agreeing that a contractor is professional enough to work with one of Schools for Schools’ 11 Ugandan partner schools.

Pre-qualification for Round 4 projects is going on right now in Gulu. Here’s how it works:

More than 90 Ugandan contractors have turned in pre-qualification documents.  These documents are like books—most are at least 250 pages long—and they outline everything there is to know about a contractor.  The documents detail past projects the contractor has completed, staff numbers, finances, legal registrations, and more.

Once the documents are turned in, our three S4S engineers will spend two weeks reading through them.  As they read, they will score the contractors using different criteria, with lots of weight put on projects the contractors have completed in the past.  The contractors who receive the highest scores will then be invited to bid on Round 4 projects.  This invitation doesn’t guarantee that S4S will award a project to a contractor.  It simply means the contractor has been deemed fit to participate in the bidding process.

Carried out every three years, the pre-qualification process is a laborious one, but definitely a necessary task.  Because S4S spends money that largely comes from individuals—money that represents personal sacrifice—we don’t take our work lightly.  For us, every dollar counts and has to pack a punch.  Pre-qualification is one of the tools we use ensure our funds are spent well.

—the S4S Team

From Uganda to America, Step One

Lillian, Innocent, Ronald, and Pepito pose for a picture before dinner on their last night in Uganda

40,000 years of American history explained in 30 minutes.  Impossible?  Yes.  We gave it our all, but when everything was said and done, it took us almost an hour.  :)

When you have myriad topics to explain to 16 Ugandans about to head to the US for three months, and when the majority of those Ugandans have never left Africa before, let alone flown on a plane, something that at its conception seemed like an easy few days of cultural training turns into a herculean exercise in patience and endurance.  How do you prepare someone to navigate the murky cultural waters of the Land of the Free?  Thanks to our diversity, there are so many implied whispers, so many subtle subtexts, underpinning the tangle of American behavior and philosophy.  One thing no one ever boasts about when they rave about The Melting Pot is the type of gunk that has accumulated around the rim of the thing, the residue of centuries of cultural fusion.  Where do you even begin to describe the most diverse country on Earth?

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Acholi Culture: Weddings and Dowries

Animals are an important part of Acholi dowries.  These goats, two of many given, were part of Jennifer’s dowry.

Awkwardly, the men crawled into the circular hut, leaving their shoes in a pile at the door.  They slid their knees across the worn, earthen threshold, slacks and all.  Under the light of a bare bulb dangling overhead like a banished star, they took their places against the mud wall, sitting on reed mats.  Facing them from an arc of thrones, nine men sat in plastic chairs that lined the hut’s opposite wall.  The few women in attendance—all elderly with the exception of the bride and her sister, all in ornate, spotless gomas—sat on the ground at the periphery of the scene.  A large metal pot filled with gifts—a live chicken, boxes of matches, a gas lantern—acted as the room’s clunky nucleus.  Once silence blanketed the space, the stage was set:  Jennifer and Shanti’s wedding could now begin.

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On the Ground: VSLA Group Profile

Members of Oberabic’s VSLA group wait for their weekly meeting to start

The village, Oberabic, meaning Five Mosquitos in Luo, is not unlike the hundreds of other small villages carpeting the countryside of northern Ugandan.  Subsistence farmers separated from one another by vast swaths of farmland are its residents.  Its roads are mottled paths tunneled by head high grasses.  Its nights—electricity and light bulb-free—are cloaked in deep, penetrating shadows when clouds float thick.  There’s no bustling town center.  No large restaurants or modern internet cafes.  Because they pull their livelihoods from the earth beneath their feet, season by season, many people in Oberabic exist on the fringes of a money-based economy, relying on bartering and infrequent money-based purchases to survive.  Which is why, on this day, the meeting taking place is more remarkable:  farmers who have never done so before are pooling their cash, balancing financial ledgers, and taking loans.

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S4S Update: Three Down, Three to Go!

Three Ugandan teachers—Ketty, Robert, and John—have been awarded two-year visas to the US

If you’ve been following this website, you know that six Ugandan teachers will head to the US for one month of team teaching in December under the S4S Reciprocal Teacher Exchange.  We’re ecstatic about this upcoming trip because we’ve never brought Ugandan teachers to the US in this capacity before.

Yesterday three of the selected teachers were called for interviews at the US Embassy in Kampala.  It can often be difficult to obtain an appointment for the visa interview, and the interview itself can be very challenging.  In order to grant a visa, the US Embassy has to be assured that the people intending to travel, in this case our Ugandan teachers, have every intention of returning home.  The three candidates traveled to Kampala overnight and sat for interviews in the early morning.  After an almost disastrous start (one candidate forgot her passport!) all three got the opportunity to sit before an immigration officer and tell their story.  After an agonizing couple of hours, the S4S team learned that all three candidates had been successful and were awarded two-year visas!

Invisible Children Uganda has good ties with the US Embassy, thanks in part to the great work our teams do on the ground in Gulu, but primarily from the efforts of everyone involved in the global IC movement.  Without the continued publicity from your support, our teachers might not been so successful.  Plans are underway for the remaining three selected teachers to sit for interviews.  Keep your fingers crossed!