Foredrag om Uganda 7.juni 2004 Mandag 7/6 holdt Randi Farstad, Per Egil Toldnes og Elizabeth Kibuka-Musoke (samarbeidspartner for anledningen), foredrag for elever på 8. og 9. trinn om Uganda. Randi og Per Egil snakket om sine erfaringer fra sin studiereise til Uganda sommeren 2003. I tillegg ble det vist bilder fra reisen. Elizabeth kommer fra Uganda, men bor nå i Norge. Hun fortalte med humoristisk varme om hvordan hun opplever å være i hjemlandet sitt. Om at mennesker stort sett er opptatt av de samme grunnleggende temaer uansett hvor på kloden en er. Hun sjarmerte alle når hun fortalte om at man der er minst like opptatt av glede, dans, misse-kåringer osv. som oss i Norge. Å sette fokus på det som er likt mellom mennesker i stedet for det som er forskjellig, er hennes råd for hvordan en best bygger forståelse mellom folk fra ulike land og kulturer.  Se rapporten fra studiereisa lenger nede på sida.   (08.06.2004)

     ● RAPPORT FRA UGANDA SOMMEREN 2003

Sommeren 2003 arrangerte FN-sambandet en studiereise for lærere fra Sør- og Nord-Trøndelag, Nordland, Troms og Finnmark. Til sammen deltok 20 lærere inkludert ti skoleledere. Fra Huseby skole deltok Per Egil Toldnes og Randi Farstad. Studiereisen hadde et tettpakket og variert program med blant annet flere skolebesøk, møte med ulike hjelpeorganisasjoner, møte med lærerorganisajonen i landet og besøk i det ugandiske parlamentet. Reisen ble arrangert av FN-sambandet med støtte av NORAD og UD.

             UGANDA

Huseby skole er en av FN-sambandets Globusskoler.
Sommeren 2003 deltok rektor og en av lærerne på
FN-sambandets studietur til Uganda.
Her besøkte vi bl.a. Kagamba Secondary School, som i dag er Huseby skoles vennskapsskole. Den ligger i Ntungamo-distriktet i sør-vestre Uganda.
Uganda er et land fylt av kontraster. En finner store, fruktbare områder, mens andre deler av landet preges av det røde jordsmonnet. Winston Churchill gav landet navnet "The Pearl of Africa" da han selv var der.

Store deler av befolkningen lever i stor materiell nød, men har likevel beholdt livsmot og livsglede. Vi ble møtt med vennlighet - og litt nysgjerrighet.

Både land og folk ga oss sterke inntrykk, og vi håper vi får anledning til å besøke Uganda igjen.

Her følger rapporten fra turen:


Report from the visit to Ntungamo
29.06.03 – 03.07.03

Preparations
We had two meetings in Trondheim before we went to Uganda. We discussed the program, our goals and visions, and a long-term plan for a possible project.
John Mugisha was contacted. He is our local contact in Uganda.

Goals

Our goals were:
-Visiting primary and secondary schools; thereby meeting pupils, teachers and headmasters. We also wanted to participate in the daily teaching-work.
-Establish personal contacts for further cooperation.
-To create a network between our schools in Norway and schools in Uganda in order to have friendship schools.

Participants
From Huseby secondary school:
Randi Farstad, teacher.
Per Egil Toldnes, headmaster.
From Nidarvoll primary school:
Elin Furunes, teacher.
Ole Sivert Walseth, deputy headmaster.
From Uganda:
John Mugisha, resident of Ntungamo.

Area to visit
We selected the South-Western part of Uganda for our project area . The main reason was that John Mugisha is from Ntungamo District in that region. It is easier to get a project working when there is a local contact in the area. Ole Sivert Walseth organized the visit to Ntungamo District in close cooperation with John Mugisha.
 

The visit
Day one.
On our first day we went all the way to Kabale. The Journey took nine hours.

Day two
We used the day to look around in the Kabale area, and we went on a boat-trip on Lake Bunyonyi. (In small boats made out of one log of timber). The day gave us a beautiful view of South-Western Uganda.

Day three
Our first school-visits. John had selected four schools for us to visit.
St. Francis primary school.
We met the headmaster, Mr. Kiryabahwa Desiderius, and the teachers and pupils.
The school has 18 teachers and 955 students.
Kanyampumo primary school.
The school is situated near lake Nyabilloko.
The school has 436 pupils and a staff of 9 teachers. We got a warm welcome from pupils and teachers. Our contact is Dep. Headmaster Mr. Muhwesi Ephraim
Kitunga secondary school, Rwashamaire.
Kitunga is a well-organized, private secondary school. It is a boarding school with approx. 700 male students. Kitunga is the most prestigious secondary school in the district.
A secondary school in Kagamba.
The school is a private secondary school. The headmaster was not present when we arrived. The school seemed overpopulated and a bit disorganized. We left without meeting the staff or the students.
Kagamba secondary school.
As a substitute for school nr. 4, Kagamba secondary school was selected.
We met the headmaster, Mr. Mwika Gerald.
The school has 408 students.

On our way to the schools, we were met by scouts and scout-leaders. The scouts and the guides of Ntungamo district are possible contacts in Uganda.

After evaluating our visits, we selected Kanyampumo primary school and Kagamba secondary school to be our future partners.

Day four
We revisited Kanyampumo primary school and Kagamba secondary school.

1. Kanyampumo primary school
Our first meeting with Kanyampumo Primary School was very promising. We got a warm welcome, and we got the impression that they were looking forward to cooperating with us.
The warm reception was one of the reasons that we later chose Kanyampumo Primary School to be our partner in Uganda.
When we arrived, they met us in the schoolyard. They have been waiting for our arrival.
First we visited primary 3. We told them about Norway and they told us about Uganda.
We brought drawing-paper and asked if they could make drawings about Uganda for us to take back to Trondheim.

We met primary 6 and 7. They were assembled in one room. We had brought a book with Norwegian fairytales in English. We read and dramatized “Bukkene Bruse” for them. What an audience!
Elin brought drawings from her class in Trondheim. She showed them to the pupils and asked if they could make drawings for us to take home to Norway. They were happy to do that.
While the pupils made the drawings, we had a meeting with the teachers. We discussed with them a possible cooperation in the future.

They told us that each pupil had only one exercise book to last for one year. They have to buy all their schoolbooks themselves. In primary 1 and 2, they use pencils, while the rest of the pupils use a pen.
Total number of students is 438. 220 were boys and 216 were girls.
Number of pupils:
Primary 1: 180 in two streams.
Primary 2: 70
Primary 3: 63
Primary 4: 52
Primary 5: 42
Primary 6: 37
Primary 7: 23
The parents must buy school uniforms in addition to exercise books.
School fees are 4000 USh pr. family each term. There are three terms each year.

The number of pupils in the classes indicates that there are drop-outs. The teachers gave us the following reasons:
Some move to other schools.
Some stay at home due to many different reasons.
They are not able to pay school fees. (This is interesting because of the new policy of having free school for all Ugandan children).

The teachers were asked what the school, the teachers and the pupils needed.
Staff quarters. Some of the teachers lived a long distance from school.
Electricity. The nearest electricity line was 10 km from the school. They did not really believe that we could help them with that.
Water-pump. The school has no water. The children bring their own water to school.
Guest-book. (A possible request).

We wanted to show our new friends more of the Norwegian culture. We danced polka for them in the schoolyard. Afterwards both pupils and teachers participated in the dance. Then they showed us some African dances.
We brought gifts to the school. Each teacher got a collage-sweater. Pupils in primary 6 and 7 each got a pen and a notebook. We also brought a globe and not least, a football. The football was the most popular gift for both pupils and teachers.

It was with a heavy heart we left Kanyampumo School that day. We would have liked to have much more time together with these warm and beautiful people. But, we promised to keep contact, to write letters to each other.

We are going to give them letters and stamps (John Mugisha will deliver the stamps). This will enable them to send letters to Norway without using from the small amount of money they already have.
John mugisha will be our contact in Ntungamo and help the schoolwhen sending letters and parcels to us.

2. Kagamba secondary school
Wednesday 2nd July
The day started with some troubles with the time schedule. In the morning we had to stop in Mbarara to buy some paper and pencils for the pupils. Long driving distance to Ntungamo made us late for the meeting in the morning. We had to go to the primary school before visiting Kagamba secondary school. John Mugisha, our contact person, sent a message with a boy to the school, saying that we were delayed. When we arrived at about two o’clock, the headmaster Mr Gerald Mwika looked a bit surprised. He had got the wrong message the boy had told him we would not come at all. Some of the teachers were disappointed and had left the school. The headmaster was a friendly and quiet man. He was interested in hearing more about our plans and why we wanted to visit Kagamba secondary school. We told him more about our study travel, about our plans to find a friendship school in Uganda, and about how we considered Kagamba secondary school in light of this ambition. The headmaster seemed interested and told us more about the school. He said that the school is based on catholic religion, and that the school is a public school with 408 students 267 males and 141 females. The staff consisted of 22 teachers 4 females and 18 males. The school had seven levels with two streams at level 1 4. He then mentioned the problems with girls dropping out of school on higher levels because they have to do housework at home and help their family make an income. This was also an issue that the students were very concerned about.

During the stay we gave the headmaster a computer. He was surprised and very satisfied with having such nice gift. There was no electricity at the school, but it was possible to charge the PC at somebody’s home. Afterwards, the four of us were split in two groups and visited two classes. Randi and Per Egil from Huseby visited level 3 A. The classroom was filled up with fifteen years old students. First we gave a presentation of who we were, and why we were in Ntungamo at their school. The students were interested and had a sense of humour that we enjoyed. They were curious, and not at least, serious when they had some questions they wanted us to answer. For example, they asked about the political system in Norway and about differences between the political situation in Norway and Uganda. They also asked what challenges we have in the Norwegian school today. We were really impressed by the level of reflections in the questions. Per Egil used the opportunity to talk about his favourite subjects, pedagogics and learning strategies, to the students. The two other teachers in the group, Elin and Ole Sivert, met another class. The headmaster stayed together with them and they recognised that the students had a good relation to their headmaster. He made jokes with them and showed that he cared for them.

In the afternoon we met the staff. The headmaster welcomed us and informed about our visit and some of our thoughts about visiting Kagamba secondary school. Afterwards we said something about our stay and our wish to start a cooperation with them and become a friendship school. The deputy headmaster pointed out that Uganda is a poor country, but is still very proud and very interested in science and knowledge. He underlined that such a friendship had to be built on equality in spite of material differences. We agreed that the friendship had to be wanted from both sides. We were not there to give anyone charity, we just wanted to make friendship and to change and learn something from people from another culture. The teachers also spoke about their challenges in their school. The lack of schoolbooks was their major concern. The teachers really appreciated the PC and the book with Norwegian fairytales that we gave them. The agreement for further cooperation is that one of the classes in Huseby school initially will start writing letters to one class at Kagamba secondary school. In the second phase we would like to start communicating via Internet. Before start writing letters, we have to make a letter of agreement between the two schools that will be signed by the headmasters of Kagamba secondary school and Huseby school this autumn.

Day five
We were invited to attend a sports-day at Kitunga secondary school. As guests of honour, we watched a well-organized sports-day. At our departure, together with the scouts, we planted a tree of friendship on the school premises.

In the afternoon we went back to Kampala.

Summary
John Mugisha had done good job preparing for our visit. Our time-schedule was changed during the visit, but we managed to reach our objective: to find a primary school and a secondary school for future cooperation.
Our meetings with scouts took more time than expected, but they are a possible group to be contacted in our future cooperation with our schools in Ntungamo.

The future
We choose to see future plans in two different perspectives: The immediate and already decided perspective and one consisting of future plans and hopes that has to be considered carefully both with respect to collaborators, economy and realism.

1. Plans for information work in the participating Norwegian schools (Trondheim).
- Strengthening elements of the north-south relations in already existing projects and priorities with international focus.
- Participation in external projects initiated by "Operasjon dagsverk", United Nations/Fn-sambandet, Unicef, Save the Children, SOS Barnebyer or others, within international questions both in relation to aid programs or political issues.
- Initiate similar projects on the school’s platform with "international day/week", theatrical performances, exhibitions etc.
- Aim for a strong focus on international issues in the daily work in the schools.
- Information performances from Uganda visit to all students/pupils in the schools.
- Presentations from Uganda visit on school home page.

2. Plans for communication and cooperation between the two schools in Trondheim and two schools in the Ntungamo district in Uganda.
- A letter of introduction following our recent visit to Uganda to introduce ourselves and confirm our intentions of communication and cooperation.
- Communicating schools will initially be Nidarvoll versus Kanyampumo primary school and Huseby versus Kagamba secondary school. We will start the process gradually by first having the pupils in selected groups both in Ntungamo and Trondheim exchanging drawings and letters. The aim being knowledge of culture, history, school system, everyday life etc. and a motivation for English language studies, as the English language has the same position in both countries.

3. Plans for the future.
These plans will be written out in more detail in a separate document which will be presented to possible collaboration partners like Redd Barna, Unicef and NORAD. We also see multinational companies as future collaborators. Essential in this document will be the emphasises of equal relations.

In this report we are content by listing up some of the ingredients of our thoughts.
- Extended communication between the schools, such as exchange of teaching methods and other pedagogical issues, cultural expressions etc., also involving visiting each other`s countries and exchange of students, teachers and administrators.
- Establishing contact persons in both countries to help progress and reliability.
- Establishing communication lines by the use of internet and SMS.
- Develop and run courses (f.i.ICT), conferences and seminars.
- Ugandan schools connected to electronic devices directly in the chosen schools.
- Establishing health resort in Fort Portal for retired Norwegian teachers and others.
 

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