Schooling or Eating, an Impossible Decision
The Back to School season is filled with brand-new crayons, just-sharpened pencils, and clean, crisp white paper. The hope of cooler weather, crunchy leaves, and field trips is explosive among the children. In America, this is the excitement of a new school year.
But in Uganda, it is a much different story…
In Uganda, there is not a public school system that is free to every child. Going to school is more complicated for poor villagers. Many of these Ugandan families make about $80 a month. Tuition, for a term, is $40 per child. But that isn’t all- there are additional costs; for example, the administrative and nurse fees, as well as a uniform.
Once the child is in secondary school, the institutions have more of a boarding school format, meaning they will have to bring toiletries, toilet paper, regular paper, cleaning supplies, multiple outfits, a luggage crate, food items, mops and brooms, etc. They are also required to provide a uniform for school. If any of the requirements are missing, they are sent home from school.
Most parents have multiple children, which means many cannot afford to send them to school. In addition to the cost of schooling, rent for a single room home for these families is another $40 a month. As you can see, when faced with the decision to feed their family or send their children to school, parents are left with impossible decisions. Without education, the next generation will be impoverished, unable to provide schooling to their children. This vicious cycle will continue unless someone steps in to help this generation!
“Of the 1,875,553 children who enrolled as P1 (1st grade) students for Primary School in 2013, 1,138,611 dropped out before their P7 exams in 2020. Only 736,942 students took the exam necessary to advance to Secondary School (High School)”
You make that difference. Every month that you sponsor a child, they are able to go to school, having all of the necessary supplies. Every day they spend in that school makes the difference for them to be able to break free from poverty and ignorance and embrace a better life where they don’t have to worry about providing the basic necessities of life to their children.
It will give them an opportunity to live a life where they will be able to choose to do the work they love. Many of the children hoping to be sponsored have huge dreams- they want to be nurses and lawyers and accountants and teachers. They want to become something they could never achieve without getting an education.
As you prepare to send your kids back to school, remember the children overseas who want to go back to school as well. Once the Covid lockdowns are done in Uganda, there are many, many children who will be left behind, and you and your family could make the difference for one of these left-behind children to go to school for the first time.