Read on to hear about the impact of your donations in 2024!
It’s been a good year for Uphill Junior School. After 10 years of building, box ticking, and official inspection visits, the school has been awarded fully registered status as a Private Educational Institution in Uganda. As you can see below, Headteacher Michael and Director Elius are justly delighted that all their hard work and leadership has paid off.
354 pupils enrolled at Uphill at the start of the academic year in February (140 in kindergarten; 214 in the primary classes), and another class of Primary 7 pupils left school to sit the Primary Leaving Examination (PLE) at the start of November. That’s 8 consecutive years of opportunity to take PLE – a great result!
You can read some of the pupils’ stories on this blog: https://www.uphilltrust.org/class-of-2024/
Pupil Support Fund
Fourteen regular donors, including 2 primary schools in England, supported 24 children at Uphill Junior School this year (12 girls and 12 boys). Four of the supported pupils took PLE this year and will now be going out into the world.
Thank you so much for helping some of the children from the poorest families in the community to attend school. It makes such a difference to their lives.
Some of the pupils you supported in 2024
The General Pupil Support Fund continues to help any child in school who has an acute financial or medical need, along with funding occasional extra-curricular activities which benefit a larger number of pupils.
As in recent years, over the long school holiday in January, the fund supported another Vocational Skills Training Workshop. These are proving so popular that the decision has been made to build a dedicated vocational training classroom for year-round use. We are hoping to achieve this in 2025. The workshop will be stocked with donated tools and machines transported to Uganda by the charity WorkAid. You can find out more about this initiative here.
Vocational Skills Training Event in January 2024
Uphill Porridge Club
The Uphill Porridge Club (UPC) continues to be very popular with the pupils and their parents.
Uphill Baby Class waiting patiently for their morning porridge
The cost of providing porridge to every child in the school on a daily basis was £1,400 per term in 2024, slightly lower than in 2024 due to the improved fuel efficiency of the EcoStoves in the new kitchen. The funding price point remains at £15 per child per year to help offset food price inflation.
UPC was funded this year by a combination of regular donors – bringing in £2,020 – along with one-off donations, a successful Glasgow Kiltwalk and fundraising balances carried over from previous years.
We are in the pleasing position of having sufficient funds to cover the cost of the project in full for 2025, but we will need to start fundraising for 2026.
School Build Fund
Our 2024 construction project has been the development of a sanitation block in the staff housing compound. This has been funded by residual monies in the Hazel’s Footprint Foundation grant, along with a donation from North Fife Rotary Club, both received in 2023.
Progress has been slower than we would have liked due to a nationwide shortage of some building materials earlier in the year and a prolonged autumn rainy season. We are hoping that the facility, which includes 4 compost toilet stalls, 4 shower cubicles, a urinal and an area for washing clothes, will be ready by the start of the new year.
Rainwater harvesting will be added to all the buildings in the staff compound, with one large water tank already on site, thanks to the excellent fundraising by the Crosfields School Rotakids group in the summer.
We are also raising funds for an additional water tank for the school hall in 2024 Christmas Appeal as the roof is large and you can never have too much stored water in rural Uganda!
Teacher Salary Fund
The school has continued to fund a teaching assistant for the kindergarten baby class in 2024, whilst the remainder of the staff salaries (director, headteacher and 13 classroom teachers) have been paid by the trust. In 2025 we will be adding the school nurse’s salary to our payment list as we have not been able to secure another grant to fund this position.
This year has seen a large turnover of staff as the Uganda government has started to recruit teachers for the state schools once again. Moving schools can be good for career progression and Uphill was easily able to replace the staff who left, due to its excellent reputation in the district.
All the staff received a pay rise in January 2024 to help offset the rising costs that continue to make life as difficult in Uganda as in the rest of the world. There will be another pay rise in January 2025. Currently a teacher at Uphill earns the equivalent of £78 per month.
This year 12 donors targeted their donations for teacher salaries and we used funds from 19 other regular donors to help meet the monthly salary bill.
In 2024 the salary bill came to £15,089 and was covered by regular donations plus additional fundraising. We will need additional help with salary payments in 2025 – another £3,815 to be precise – so if you are able to increase your regular donation, or know anyone who may be able to help, please do let us know!
A huge thank you to everyone who has helped in this way.
Recent Developments
One last update on developments at Uphill Junior School this year…
With help from donors and the Dollar Academy Biology Department in Scotland, we are progressively introducing hands-on learning resources into the primary and kindergarten classrooms at Uphill. Learning through play and experimentation engages creativity and team working skills at all ages and is something we will be actively encouraging.
You can find out more in these two blogs:
https://www.uphilltrust.org/hands-on-learning-1/
https://www.uphilltrust.org/hands-on-learning-2/
You are all helping to make a difference to children’s lives in the community of Iruhuura in rural western Uganda.
Thank you.
Tags: donor impact 2024, The Uphill Trust, Uphill Junior School
