Uganda Orphans Project
On the 21st of September Mr Jim Bloomer and a Group of friends Eddie Drury, Alec McCausland, from Portadown will be going to Iganga to Launch their Orphanage project, they will also lead a team of 3 from Ashfield Girls High School Holywood Road Belfast, to launch their Project to build a new school on the same site.
Jim and Freda Bloomer have kindly donated 2 arces of the land that they bought in Iganga earlier this year for our School Project.
Ashfield Team Visit to Uganda
The three representatives from Ashfield Girls’ High School are setting off for Uganda. Mrs Alison Wilton, Mr Michael Skillen, Mr David Catherwood are going to visit the site of a new Ashfield School, in an area of Uganda called Iganga.
While we are excited about getting a brand new school here in Belfast (quite soon we hope), we are also looking forward to helping another community in Uganda build a new school providing new opportunities in an area that is much less fortunate than our own.
There is great excitement about both projects and we are looking forward to getting a lot more information about our site in Iganga and the people it will serve from this initial visit.
Our project will provide many new learning experiences for us all and we hope to make many new contacts from this visit and find out how best we can help people who live in conditions that are very different from our own. We believe that together we can make it better!
www.ashfieldgirls.org
If you like the idea of our project and would like to help raise the £40,000 you can contact us at anytime.
Contact Details David Catherwood ourdavy@hotmail.com
Team arrive at 12 acre site
Michael Skillen a Teacher from Ashfield at site of New School and Orphanage
Michael and I at Hotel in Jinja
July 2007
Michael Skillen and Davy Catherwood Return to Iganga
Things have been moving very slow with our school project in Uganda, as earlier in the year the original site that had been given to us by Jim and Freda Bloomer had became flooded due to heavy rains, the cost of preventing this from happening again would have eaten well into our budget so Michael Skillen and I went to Uganda at the end of July to meet with Ministry of Education officials (M.O.E.) and to look for a new site. We looked at 3 different sites and had decided on a 3 acre site behind the original site but on higher ground, we agreed a price of £3000 for 3.5 acres with the owners but when we got home we got the bad news that the owner had decided to sale to someone else. But we've recieved good news from Iganga today 24th October 2007 the Ministry of Education has given us free of charge a 10 acre site on the main Iganga Mbale Highway. They have agreed to supply and fund teaching staff at the new school, but it has been decided that this site is too far out of Iganga to be used by our orphans and it was decided that we are going to stay at Orphanage site as per original plan
Some good news from Iganga is that Michael and I have set up the Uganda Orphans Fund with Ulster Bank Connswater to sent 80 orphans from Maranantha Hiv and Aids Orphanage to school and we would like to thank all of or friends for making this posible, some have paid the £180 in full others have taken out direct debits over £15 per month over 12 months, once again we would like to say a big thankyou to you all.
Michael Skillen and Davy Catherwood Return to Iganga
Things have been moving very slow with our school project in Uganda, as earlier in the year the original site that had been given to us by Jim and Freda Bloomer had became flooded due to heavy rains, the cost of preventing this from happening again would have eaten well into our budget so Michael Skillen and I went to Uganda at the end of July to meet with Ministry of Education officials (M.O.E.) and to look for a new site. We looked at 3 different sites and had decided on a 3 acre site behind the original site but on higher ground, we agreed a price of £3000 for 3.5 acres with the owners but when we got home we got the bad news that the owner had decided to sale to someone else. But we've recieved good news from Iganga today 24th October 2007 the Ministry of Education has given us free of charge a 10 acre site on the main Iganga Mbale Highway. They have agreed to supply and fund teaching staff at the new school, but it has been decided that this site is too far out of Iganga to be used by our orphans and it was decided that we are going to stay at Orphanage site as per original plan
Some good news from Iganga is that Michael and I have set up the Uganda Orphans Fund with Ulster Bank Connswater to sent 80 orphans from Maranantha Hiv and Aids Orphanage to school and we would like to thank all of or friends for making this posible, some have paid the £180 in full others have taken out direct debits over £15 per month over 12 months, once again we would like to say a big thankyou to you all.
Michael Skillen,
Michael and I visit a good hotel in Jinja just to see what we might have stayed in,
Flooded Site at Iganga
After the heavy flooded at Iganga our whole School project looked doomed to fail.
Flooded Site Iganga
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Although water looks stagnant we have found out it is a Natural Source and we have plans to dig out the area and install tanks and introduce a fish farm for feeding the School children and Orphans.
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Michael and I go to Local Goverment Offices to meet Official
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We wait and wait and wait
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New site for school given to us by M.O.E Ministry Of Education
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Site looks really good but we felt it was just to far out of Iganga Town for our Orphans.
Orphanage and School Building Construction under way but moving very slowly
On the 24th of September till the 29th September 2009 Jim Bloomer, Eddie Drury, Robin Hamill, David Catherwood, headed back to Iganga in Uganda to see progress of both projects and to meet the remaining children that have recently found a new home in the orphanage.
There have been many changes in this project since our first trip to Uganda in September 2006
First the site where the school was to be build flooded and we had to look for another site, we found a five acre site on the hill side behind original site, this also had problems and were glad when someone else out bid us for the site.
The Government then give us a 12 acre site 10 kilometres out of town and it was decided that it was too far out of town for our orphans to attend, at this point all three parties i.e. Uganda Orphans Project, Movilla Partners in Mission and Ashfield Girls joined together to complete our project as per original plans on Iganga site and to complete both projects, to this end part of our school building work has been funded by Jim and Freda Bloomer Uganda project,
I am happy to report that the school building is nearly complete only 2nd fixing of plumbing and electrical and some shutters on windows and whole building to be painted, also we need to install security fence around school and the Admin Block, the total cost of this work will be between £12,000 - £15,000. It is important that we reach our goal and complete this project in the same year that our new school here in East Belfast was completed. As per our original target
Davy C.
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Well done everyone almost there!
I would like to thank the Staff Pupils and Parents and friends of Strandtown Primary School North Road Belfast, for their generous gift of over £6000 to our School project and on completion of the School a plaque will be erected in the main entrance hallway. www.strandtown.co.uk/bulletins/mar09.doc www.strandtown.co.uk
Ashfield School, Iganga, Uganda
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