Open Skies Primary School is approaching the end of term again and our students are getting ready to take their final exams. Students in Uganda take exams three times a school term and have three school terms a year. This means that our students take nine examinations every school year! Each exam takes place either at the beginning, middle or end of a school term and helps us measure student progress.
We currently have 42 students enrolled in nursery through primary three at Open Sky Primary School. We are excited to see our numbers growing and are pleased to be able to serve our community with a local Primary school option.
On August 4th we are on our next school break for three weeks. While this is approaching quickly we have a number of immediate needs for the students in school now and once we come back from break. This include the need for medical supplies and first aid equipment in the school, the continuing need for food and cooking fire wood, seating for the students both in the classroom and while they are out for lunch, cups and utensils for eating lunch, the expense of adding on a space for our top nursey students and the need to finish the school bathrooms especially as our numbers continue to grow.
Each of these needs is detailed below along with updates on how things are going so far.
Medical and First Aid Supplies:
Expenses in Uganda have been subject to price inflations lately. This has made it especially difficult to purchase food for the students of Open Sky Primary and Gonza House. We are always in need of funding for food and firewood for cooking but we feel this need now more than ever with the cost of every day living on the rise.
As mentioned before, our numbers at Open Sky Primary School are rising. With more mouths to feed and an increase in food prices we humbly ask for support providing food for this children. Any donation is greatly appreciated. If you have a small donation to give but would like to help, please consider sponsoring food and firewood costs. You can reach out to our directors Eddy and Tonny Tumbya at gonzahouse52@gmail.com for more information.
Open Sky Primary School has a number of cups and utensils for lunch time use but they are not enough for all of the children now attending our school. We now have 42 students enrolled. Every student deserves their own clean cup and utensil to eat with each meal. We wish to purchase 100 more cups and 100 more utensils for the students and staff at Open Primary School to full fill this need. It will cost $100 to supplies these 100 cups and 100 utensils but this will not only meet our current need but also meet the need as our student enrollment continues to grow.
As before, if this is an area you would like to support us in, we encourage you to reach out to our directors Tonny Tumbya or Eddy Tumbya through our email gonzahouse52@gmail.com. Thank you so much for considering our needs.
As our student numbers have grown, so has our nursery student population. Right now all of our nursery children are in one small room instead of broken into three rooms for baby class, middle class and top class as our primary grades are broken into rooms for primary 1, 2 and 3. We have 19 students total in nursery.
The teaching that must happen for our top nursery class has become very difficult in the confined space shared with baby class and middle class nursery students. In order to properly serve all of our nursery students we have a need to expand our school space to include a separate room for our top nursery class. This will give the older nursery students the space and calm to focus on their instruction without the worries that come of cramming too many small children into one space.
We have decided that the room currently built onto the back of Open Sky Primary School could be made into a classroom that would suit this purpose. The picture below shows the room off the back of the school building. The cost to remodel this into a suitable classroom space is $1,500. This is a large project to full fill one of our larger needs. We hope to name this classroom after the donor should someone choose to sponsor the whole project. Small donations towards this goal are also greatly appreciated. If you are interested in sponsoring this project in part or in full please contact Eddy Tumbya or Tonny Tumbya at our email, gonzahouse52@gmail.com.
Lastly, we have a need to complete the plumbing in our school bathrooms. These bathrooms are a great need for our school as we have many teachers and students coming to Open Sky Primary School now. In addition to this, the bathrooms are required by law for our school to be in operation. We have prayed for a long time to be able to have toilets with running water at Gonza House and we are now very close to completion.
There is still a cost of $500 remaining to complete the plumbing and have these bathrooms fully operational for the children and teachers at Open Sky Primary School and Gonza House Ministries. If you are able to help with this long awaited need, please email our directors Tonny or Eddy Tumbya at gonzahouse52@gmail.com.
