News....news....news....

October 2011 - struggling for Christmas present ideas? Why not sponsor a child? Contact us if you’d like a gift card to acknowledge your sponsor-ship.

October 2011  - we wish Tim Stock all the best for his stay in Ruboni - our eyes and ears on the ground for the next few months. If you would like to volunteer in Ruboni, please contact us.

June 2011 - we were delighted to receive a large anonymous donation. We have decided to expand the CSP to 40 children from January 2012 and to increase our sponsorship per child to meet recent inflation. We will support requests for short further education courses that are likely to lead to jobs.

May 2011 - a huge thanks to all those who generously sponsored our walk along the South Downs Way (from Eastbourne to Ditchling Beacon, 29.5 miles in one day). Any further donations can still be made at  www.justgiving.com/sarahlouis eemma

 

The Child Sponsorship Project

The Child Sponsorship Project (the “CSP”) started in January 2008. We currently support 36 children per year and our focus remains secondary education up to GSCE level equivalent.  To support a child, we’d ask you to donate £6 per month: please click here to donate through JustGiving.com. Primary education in Uganda is free of charge, but secondary education is not, hence our focus on sponsoring children through secondary school.  We believe that education is the best way to give the next generation opportunities which will allow them to be less reliant on the land, participate better in the modern world and be more aware of their rights and heritage.

In December 2010 5 children were taking vocational courses, 7 children (who had all received support from the CSP through their GSCE-equivalents) completed the first year of A-levels (S5) and the remaining 25 beneficiaries are in secondary schools studying for GCSE-equivalents. A list of the children that we are currently supporting and their classes are included here.

If you set up a regular donation you can choose whether you’d like that to be for a particular child or not.  More information on fundraising can be found here.

How it works

Secondary school fees are approximately £72 per year per child, or £6 per month.  (Our numbers are approximate because different schools charge different amounts and also exchange rates fluctuate.)

Seventy per cent. of the money that we raise goes to the schools of the children to pay a proportion of their school fees. The proportion that is paid is the higher of their termly fees or 50,000 Ugandan shillings (approximately £16.50) per term. Where 50,000 Ugandan shillings does not cover all school fees, the family of the children are required to make up the balance. This approach allows us to maximise the number of children that we support and, through parents having an economic interest, encourages the commitment to attending and doing well at school.

The remainder (thirty per cent.) of the money that we raise is used to fund local community projects (the “community pot”) and also pay local expenses. We keep local expenses to a minimum. Apart from a monthly retainer of 50,000 Ugandan shillings per term for the CSP Co ordinator, a local teacher called Bwambale Deo who runs the administration of the project in Ruboni, our other expenses are negligible. The costs of this website and our JustGiving subscription are paid for by the trustees personally. In short, you can be confident that your money is working hard and not being swallowed up in middle-man administration, and that’s the beauty of our small-scale charity!

Local community projects

The “community pot” of money is for community development projects. We have included this element in order to benefit the community as a whole, and to seek to reduce any resentment amongst families whose children are not currently supported by the project. The CSP committee (see below) has decided that the priority for the community pot money is to upgrade the facilities at the Ruboni Community Camp.

The Ruboni Community Camp is a recently-constructed eco-tourist facility, very close to the entrance to the Rwenzori Mountains National Park. In a beautiful setting, with fantastic views of the Portal Peaks, the Ruboni Community Camp offers great value tourist accommodation, in bandas (cottages), safari tents or pitches for your own tents. Built on eco-tourism principles, the camp has electricity provided by solar panels, smell-free efficient compost toilets and running hot and cold water on a gravity flow system filtered through the Rwenzoris. The camp includes a restaurant, and local walks, traditional dances and local crafts are available. Accommodation at the camp has just been expanded using the “community pot” money, and the camp can now sleep up to 19 people in bandas and permanent safari tents. Revenues from the camp, after wages paid to the local staff, are pumped back into the camp for maintenance and improvements. It’s hoped that in the near future the camp will generate sufficient revenues that the profits and the CSP “community pot” can be applied towards other community projects.

A link to the Ruboni Community Camp’s webpage is provided here.

If you’re interested in visiting the Ruboni Community Camp, further details are available here.

Selection criteria

Applications are made each autumn for children to start the new school year (which runs January to November, split into three terms). The CSP committee (see below) applies selection criteria including:

• Successfully completing primary school with good grades
• Living in local area
• Involvement of children or their parents with Ruboni community activities

CSP committee and accountability

The CSP committee comprises local elected parent, teaching, church and political representatives. The committee (headed by the CSP Co ordinator is obliged to prepare periodic reports (usually every term) concerning the progress of the project, enclosing copies of student reports and giving details of how the monies have been spent. This allows the Rwenzori Trust to monitor the project and ensure our money is being put to the best use, especially the “community pot”. The school fees payable by the Rwenzori Trust are paid by cheque from the CSP bank account in Kasese town to the schools and receipts are obtained and included in the reports.

The monies donated to the Rwenzori Trust in the UK are collected in our bank account from which termly transfers are made to Uganda. Although we pay a transfer fee to the bank every time we do a transfer, we don’t just do one transfer per year, in order to help us keep a better track of finances.

Future aspirations

With primary eduation being free in Uganda and the Ugandan government spreading its universal education programme to S1 and S2 in many schools, we currently focus on topping up education to get students to S4 level. However, since 2010 we have allowed children who benefited from the CSP through S4 to progress into S5 and S6 (equivalent to A-levels) and also further education colleges. We’ve taken the view that we’d like to help a number of children through A levels and practical courses, rather than just one or two children into university, the latter not necessarily guaranteeing better employment prospects. As and when our finances permit, we’ll revisit this policy, especially if we have any exceptionally bright students completing S6.