The holiday lunch club for our neediest children was popular again for the long holiday – and the children really appreciated the balls, skipping ropes – almost as much as they enjoyed lunch!
Before the school opened some repairs were made to the floors so important to prevent jiggers) and also replastering and repainting the blackboards.
The mobile welder came to fix some of the door and window hinges and handles too!
All of the sponsored children collected their learning materials at the beginning of term – including washing powder for their uniforms. We are really focussing on initiatives improving the children’s well-being this year.
We have agreed to hold a health clinic each term – it is run by Sarah who is a prescribing nurse. Sarah is pleased that since we started the clinics incidences of ring worm have reduced. She is also providing advice in basic hygiene and healthcare to the parents. Each clinic costs us around £350 including Sarah’s time, travel and the drugs she supplies.
On the same day 28 girls received menstrual cups which will enable them to attend school regularly. Children at the school where Pritti works sold valentine roses to raise funds to cover this cost.
The PLE results have been published – and 21 of the 27 candidates from Jackie School passed, this year there were none in the top grade, seven in the second grade, twelve in the third grade and just two in the fourth grade. All seven of the sponsored children who took the exams were in the third grade. Milton commented, ‘It seems that the exam was slightly harder this year and very few children passed in division one, not even those living in towns where the candidates usually perform well compared to rural schools. In our test centre there were three schools which totalled to 143 candidates, we had 27 and we scored the best with 21 passes. The total number of failures the whole centre was 58 children of which 6 were ours. So countrywide the general performance was not all that very good. But we have done our best.’ We plan to give each of the successful pupils a small contribution towards their future – more to follow on this!
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