Support for Lake Bunyonyi Secondary School
Support for Byoona Amagara “whole life” project
Supporting Community-
Sciences are now compulsory for all secondary school students in Uganda but, since this ruling was made, no additional funds have been made available to equip school laboratories.
Lake Bunyonyi Secondary School is situated on Bwama Island at Lake Bunyonyi in south
western Uganda. They had limited amounts of very old equipment which meant that
it could easily take up to 13 hours for O and A level students to complete the practical
part of their exams. The first students would begin at 7 a.m. and the last ones finish
at 8 p.m. -
Exams take place in November -
The result -
In April 2006 we teamed up with volunteers staying at nearby Bushara Island Camp to provide a further 650,000 Shillings (around £200) worth of equipment to further equip the lab and improve the opportunities to carry out practical experiments during the school year. The facilities are still far from ideal, but Lake Bunyonyi Secondary School now has a much better equipped lab and compares more favourably with many of the other schools in the area.
In April 2006 we facilitated the installation of solar powered lighting at the school. There is no mains electricity on the island and therefore lighting for early morning and evening study could only be provided when there was enough money to provide fuel for the generator.
The school used to spend around 1.8 million Shillings -
Through fundraising and a grant from Sustainable Energy Initiatives Trust we were able to install solar panels, batteries and lighting in four classroom which are used for lessons and private study. In addition, we refurbished an old system in the science lab which was no longer working, and extended this to the next room to provide an additional lit study area.
The result -
Fundraising in the UK helped to kit out the computer lab at Byoona Amagara community project on Itambira island, Lake Bunyonyi. Six computers are used to provide IT skills training to local people, in particular the students at Lake Bunyonyi Secondary School. We were also able to make a financial contribution towards the costs of the essential solar power system needed to run this equipment.
The Library at Byoona Amagara is intended to be a community resource which can be accessed by the local people and especially local schools. It also provides a great attraction to the tourists who come to stay on Itambira island!
We sent a shipment of mixed books -
Akatagyenda -
When it comes to sustainable development in Uganda, one of the key areas is tourism. The relative stability and peace within the country and continued growth in travel amongst people in more developed countries means that tourism is on the increase.
One of the most attractive features of Uganda is the amazing people and their cultures. Akatagyenda was set up to promote the development of tourism by local people, for the benefit of local people. It aims to assist communities to develop tourism initiatives which promote their local culture, history and environment in ways which are sustainable socially, financially and environmentally.
We were instrumental in establishing a small locally registered Community-
Read more by clicking here.
