Genny and Sarah Teaching at Bbira Primary School, September 08, originally uploaded by amanda.milholland.
Photo of Genny and Sarah teaching at Bbira Primary School.
While HIV/AIDS prevention messages were made a permanent fixture at Kikaaya College, we also expanded our HIV/AIDS and Like Skills Education and Empowerment Program in some other ways this quarter. This September we added a seventh school, Bbira Primary School, to the schools our volunteers teach at each week. Our partnership with Bbira was inspired by our HIV/AIDS teacher’s training program from last quarter. Two teachers from Bbira attended the training. When we went to Bbira to check on their progress in HIV/AIDS education since the training, the headmaster asked for more assistance in starting a HIV/AIDS and health program at the school. Bbira Primary School is a universal primary school or UPE school. UPE schools are public schools, but receive very little funding. Without funding, the classrooms are left to decay, teachers go without materials and students fair with meager rations for lunch. Students who attend UPE schools are usually the poorest. Bbira students especially fit this description as the headmaster of this school has started a program to help some students who are orphaned and who do not even have the resources to cover the required uniform and school supplies costs attend, and even receive free lunch. With teachers often working without materials in overcrowded classrooms, students miss out. Bbira Primary School serves several hundred students, yet we are working with older students chosen by their teacher as being most in need of counseling and guidance in HIV/AIDS prevention, reproductive health and empowerment. We are also training the Bbira teachers in the same subjects. Our aim with Bbira is to give the teachers needed information and help them develop interactive teaching skills for health education, while at the same time demonstrating related lesson to the students. In this way, we hope to both empower the students and teachers.
In addition to continuing this work over the next quarter, we will be doing two other exciting projects: another student HIV/AIDS mural at Royal Kaweempe College and a water and hygiene program for all the schools we work with. These projects will be done with help from our new Peace Corps Volunteer as well as our temporary volunteers. We completed the first mural project with a small amount of money left. My cousin Jessica and her husband Ben Watson made a donation to cover the additional costs of this next mural. The mural project will be done much in the same way as the first student mural project. The students will be invited to compete to design the mural. When a design is chosen, the artist will be awarded with a package of school supplies. All students will be invited to participate in painting the mural.
Jessica and Ben’s donation will also help us with the water and hygiene project we will be carrying out in October. October 15th is International Hand Washing Day. During the second and third weeks of October all our programs with the schools will focus on the benefits of hand washing and good hygiene. We also hope to work with many of the schools we teach at as well as with some of the families we work with through our home visit program to build tippy taps, hands free hand washing stations. Our volunteers are working on a model in our compound now. Thank you Jessica and Ben for your donation.
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