My heart is at Living Hope

On my very first day in Uganda back in July 2008, I visited Living Hope Children's Centre which is a primary school in Nateete. That is where I first fell in love with Uganda.

Nateete is an urban slum on the outskirts of Kampala. To get there, you drive on the paved road and then it become a dirt road that can accommodate 2 vehicles until you turn left and drive on a dirt road that can accommodate one vehicle and a few longhorn cows if they get out of the way. Turn right at the butcher, left at the big tree and on your left you will see Living Hope.

There is a big auditorium on the right that is a church on Sundays and a two storey building on the left that houses the P4-P7 classes.













To get to the primary area you walk down a dirt path to some open sheds that are the k-P3 classrooms.

















There are about 280 students there and some are orphans who live at the school but others are children from Nateete. Children start baby class when they are about 3 years old and after 3 years of kindergarten they move on to P1. Students have to pass exams before they can move to the next grade. In the P4 class there are students aged 8-15. There are also about 50 students in the P4 class but then by P6 there are about 15 left. The drop-out rate is close to 80% by the time the students leave grade 5. Each year when I visit there are students that I look for that are gone.

I have visited the school each year I have travelled to Uganda. In 2010 I had the honour of team teaching for a week with Hassan and Nicholas, the P4 and P5 teachers. It was a terrific experience and we did many types of activities in all subjects. We taught literacy using Superpotamus, reviewed the circulatory system while doing jumping jacks and measuring our pulse, played with blocks and salt dough to learn geometry, and shared postcards that Kelowna children had written that the Ugandan students then replied to. Hassan, Nicholas and I spoke about the challenges of teaching long division and I looked at the grade 4 Math curriculum which is almost identical to the BC curriculum.

The children at Living Hope can sing and dance with heart like no other school group I have ever seen. They love performing and sharing their music with us mzungu who come to see them. They smile and laugh. They offer to share their small portion of porridge. They are genuine. I love spending time with them. My heart is at Living Hope.