May 2025

Milton gathered the sponsored children together for sodas and snacks before giving them their report cards at the end of term. What a cheerful bunch they are!

The maize, planted with beans, is growing well in most places but sadly some fields have been adversely affected by the Fall Army Worm again but Milton says the farmers are becoming more used to being self sufficient and they have been out spraying with pesticides.  He hopes they have the pests under control.

During the holiday the officers from the Department of Education in Mbale inspected Jackie School Milton says they were ‘very much impressed as it's very rare to find such a school in rural setting, more like those in urban areas.  The buildings and especially the toilets graded us highly.’

Milton was especially pleased that the officers visited in the week when we had commissioned Read for Life to send 2 trainers to Mbale to deliver a course for the Jackie School teachers to enable them to further develop the phonics work which has really benefitted the children’s learning.

Eight teachers were delighted to attend a four-day course in the final week of the holiday to refresh and deepen their knowledge of phonics teaching. We were also able to buy some new teaching materials from Read for Life.

It felt particularly relevant to be holding this course in the week the Guardian  - here is a link – published this article : https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/may/21/cuts-aid-girls-education-labour-government

-and this is the stand out message: ‘Before it was axed as a standalone ministry by the Conservatives and subsumed into the Foreign Office, the Department for International Development commissioned countless studies into whether spending money on encouraging girls to go to school should be a priority for the aid budget. It concluded that it should be – and for good reasons.

Women with an education are far more likely to go to a clinic and have their children vaccinated. They are also more likely to get antenatal care and seek early treatment for diarrhoea and pneumonia, both potential killers.

The evidence is compelling: if all women completed primary education and gained basic literacy, maternal deaths would be reduced by two-thirds.  In Uganda, each extra year of schooling cut the risk of infant mortality by more than 16%.’ 

Whilst the cuts to the aid budget are deeply depressing it’s good to know that with your support we are doing something.