At AOET we believe that education and teaching are a process by which the behavior of one person is changed into conformity by the standards exemplified by another.

We therefore foster the teaching style where teachers seek to love their students and get interested not only in their academic performance but the total personhood of their students.

 

Analysis

In the areas where AOET works, Education is the residents’ primary concern (49% – AOET, 2004). AIDS’ orphans are often the first to be denied education, as their extended families cannot afford to school them or afford to provide scholastic materials. Needless to say, secondary schooling is beyond the means of the majority.

Because a large number of Students being sponsored by AOET is in Primary School, and because it costs us a fortune to send a child to High School, and because MANY young people walk long distances to go to School every morning, we decided to begin our own model high School.

A Section of the High School

This High School will care for Students from all walks of life irrespective of their religious beliefs, race, tribe, political orientation …

Over the Past few Months, construction of the High School has been one of the major projects being run by AOET. AI and it’s patners are funding this construction!

 We’ve been able to put up ALL the structures of this phase and are now on the “finishing ” details; these involve plastering, Ceiling work…

A few of the structures have either already been plastered or are being platered!

 

 

 

 Ceiling work is in progress as well!

The carpenters have done a WONDERFUL job so far with the roofs, and are doing a WONDERFUL job with ceiling work as well.

 

 

 Over the past few months, prices of almost EVERYTHING have soared through the roof!!! Somethings have almost doubled in cost. For example, a 16 mm Steel Bar that we used to buy at 22,000 Uganda shillings a year ago, has gone up to 49,000 Uganda shillings!!! (More than 100% increment!!

And therefore, we decided to stock up on goods that can be stored! For All the roofs and Ceiling, the best wood has been purchased from other Towns and brought to us! We’ve stocked up enough wood, to meet all our woodwork needs! we’ve also stocked up cement and other construction materials.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Construction of the High School has provided jobs for ove 100 people that live in and around the community where the School is being built! These range from suppliers of Building materials, carpenters, builders, Welders, local food cooks… This has Pleased the community a GREAT deal!!

    School Administrative Building on its roofing stage.

 

AOET intends to set up several Primary and High Schools as model schools for children from HIV/AIDS backgrounds – offering - in addition to the formal curriculum, Vocational training, career guidance, child counseling and other skills.

 

CHILD WELFARE DEPARTMENT - May Report

In this Report:

1. Child sponsorship

2. Home Visits

3. Payment of School fees

4. Update on JOEL

5. Tailoring school

6. Rehaboth school

7. AOET Children’s village

 

 1. CHILD SPONSORSHIP

i) More Children Sponsored

42 more children in addition to the Hundreds already sponsored got sponsorship during the month of May and this has enabled us get closer to our Child Sponsorship goal for 2008. The greatest contribution has been done by the AOET USA office that is always looking for sponsors for Ugandan Children.

ii) Letter writing

Unlike in the past, this month, majority of the sponsored children communicated to their sponsors through letter writing. This is done at the end of every end of term. With Ginger and Beth’s help, 85% of the total sponsored Children wrote their termly sponsorship letters. This helps keep a healthy relationship between the Sponsor and sponsoree. Of the Hundreds of Children that are sponsored, getting 85% write their letters in just a little over a week means social workers, Ginger and Beth worked around the clock!! The rest of the 15% are also bringing in their letters. These should be with AOET - USA soon. Bravo !!! 

Ginger also came with letters from sponsors for Children which have also all been responded to.

2. HOME VISITS

Forty homes have been visited by our social workers and the visiting team.

Most outstanding of them was the visit to Atim Betty in kumi District and Nantabo Sumaya in mbale. Both these are hundreds of Kilometers from AOET!! One social worker visited Atim Betty, a young sponsored child with HIV in kumi. She missed her end of term exams due to poor Health, but by the time the Social worker got to her Home, she was doing well.

Nantabo Sumaya in Mbale District is also one of the sponsored child that was going to Rehaboth Integrated School and staying with a maternal grandmother. Eventually her extended family picked her and took her to mbale to stay with her paternal aunt. AOET is committed to all the Sponsored Children far and near. Social workers report on each child’s status every month.

 

3. SCHOOL FEES PAYMENT 

The school term officially opened on 26th may 2008, and fortunately we received the school fees in time for all sponsored children. Although the dollar has fallen sharply aganst the Uganda Shilling, AOET Administration has managed to keep all Children in School. School fees payment for children is in progress until next week when we hope all children will have been paid for .

4. UPDATE ON JOEL

Joel and His Mother on returning from the United States

 Igodobe Joel-9 years is a sponsored child attending Rehaboth integrated school. He has been using clutches to move to and from school for the last 5 years after a small accident left one of his legs broken. When AOET received a visiting team in 2006, one of the members was touched by Joel’s story because he could not play like other children and he thought it could be possible for Joel to be operated on and be able to walk again. When he went back, he organized a team of doctor friends and also looked for funds to take Joel and have him operated on.

Joel now has a story to tell, he is back after a 5 months stay in the United States. He had Margaret looking after Him, and they both Stayed with Karen and Web in Oregon. Joel is now completely healing and can walk without a clutch!

Special thanks to the Different Hospitals, Ambulance services, physiotherapists, Karen and Web, Ginger, the Smiths and Many other people that can’t all be listed here.

 

5. TAILORING SCHOOL

May marked the end of the training for the AOET women tailoring school and the trainees are now waiting for their graduation ceremony. At the moment they are doing their final touches on traditional wear commonly known as kanzu and gomesi  for men and women respectively.

The 67 finalists (In Jinja) recently had their end of year party at the source of the Nile  in Jinja organized by the Child Welfare office and funded by AOET - ICO.

They had a good time together with their instructor and the social workers away from school and home. They will soon walk away with certificates and Sewing machines from AOET to start their own Businesses and so care for the Children placed under their care.

6. REHABOTH INTEGRATED SCHOOL

The school term at Rehaboth opened on 26th may for all continuing pupils except for Seventh Grade ers  that remained behind for their holiday study. Children have started the school term enthusiastically with seriousness. This term is expected to end in august.

i) Monthly Tests

Seventh Grade (Primary seven) has started the term with their monthly progressive tests set by Prime educational consultants -  reknown for organizing tests and exams for schools. We are yet to tell how far they have gone since this term prepares them for their primary leaving exams in form of mock exams that will be done on 18th July.

The schedule for tests is as follows.

Date	Test
1st June	End of may General Exams
13th June	mid June General Exams
20th June	mid term General Exams
4th July	Seventh GradePre-mock Exams
18th July	Seventh Grademock Exams
25th July	End of term General Exams

ii) Distribution of school uniforms

73.5 % of ALL the school children received new school uniforms made by the AOET tailoring group during the month. Only a few children still have old uniforms and this will be sorted out by the end of June. The School and Children in General now look cleaner compared to last term. Thanks to the administration that has provided funds for the materials and the tailoring school that has made the school uniforms at no cost.

iii) Recruitment of new teachers

Three teachers have been added on the Rehaboth teaching staff and this brings the number of teachers at a School with 7 classes to 15. This gives a ration of 1 Teacher to 26 Children (1:26) Copared to Government Schools that have 1:200 - sometimes more, this is VERY good for Ugandan Standards. We have purposely decided to limit erollment to this ration in order to give quality Education to the Children under our care.

In total, Rehaboth now has 20 Staff: 15 teaching staff, a computer instructor, bursar and three cooks.

iv) Primary seven boarding section

A place has already been identified and rented for primary seven pupils boarding section. At least six months have been paid and primary seven will be moving in soon. Administration is yet to provide beds and mattresses for pupils. This will help teachers to teach for longer hours and help children in their revision as they prepare for their primary leaving examinations in November.

 The school has been provided with stationery for this term by the administration, all this will help the teachers to teach well and for the students to learn better.

v) Upcoming events at the school

 16th June—day of the African child

21st July annual sports day

Educational tour for upper primary

 

7. REHABOTH CHILDREN’S VILLAGE

The parents are taking care of their own compounds at the Children’s village. This has seen ALL house compounds clean.

 One more Home is being constructed there, but the cue of families with adopted Children waiting to have a Home at the Children’s Village keeps growing. We already have hundreds of Children there at the Moment. Most of these Children are paid for by AOET to go to School and only those that haven’t reached School going age remain behind. The Village is Vibrant on Sunday afternoons when everyone is home, children are not in School, Parents are from Church and are relaxing at home waiting for the next day, … You need to visit!!! This is the right environment for Children!!!!

The vision here is to provide a home for Children that have lost their parents to AIDS and would otherwise never be able to go to School or have a stable home!

 

Upcoming events at the Children’s Village

Parenting Seminar for Families on 14th June 2008

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Thank you for taking the time to read through this whole report! I hope it has given you an Idea of what life has been like in this department this past month! Please come again more often! We will be posting more info every now and then.

Nakubulwa Teo

HEAD OF DEPARTMENT,  AOET - Uganda Child Welfare.

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Our Monthly Report

 

 The month of May has been quite busy for AOET-Kenya. It would have been very hard; had it not been for the cooperation of all concerned.

We want to particularly thank the International Coordinating Office Led by Sam for facilitating our smooth running.

SCHOOL FEES:

This is the month schools were opening and as usual, as schools open there is an element of paying school fees. It is unfortunate that the students we sponsor go to schools in different places; this makes it quite difficult to pay fees for all of them in good time but we were able to do that effectively.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

We want to thank the International coordinating Office again for having organized  to release funds

 we needed in good time for the Second Term. In collaboration with Jen Long who is handling our Kenya Child Sponsorships and Ginger at The AOET USA Office, we were able to receive the funds here in good time. We say THANK YOU to The International Coordinating Office ( ICO).

 ^{But, Although we got the fees in time, there are some challenges we faced. Some pupils’ sponsors had dropped off. This means that these children cannot go to school since they do not have fees. The sad part is that we had already transferred some of them to better Schools after a commitment from the Sponsors!!}

^NETWORKING

We were touched by a very sad event when we came to discover that one of our sponsored children had already developed fully blown AIDS and was unable to attend school due to poor health. This has further reminded us of the need to reach out to more organizations dealing with treatment and caring for people living with HIV/AIDs. Currently we are networking with AMPATH to assist us with the treatment. The child has already been started on treatment and nutrition supplements to sustain her health.

^{STAFF MATTERS} 

AOET-Kenya is privileged and happy to report that two of its staff left for further training - curtesy of the International coordinating Office (ICO); in order to upgrade their knowledge in the field of their operation here at AOET.

They will be expected to come back and develop AOET further in the field for which they trained.

 

Daudi Epero (Mike)

Mike is currently training at Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology. His course will take one semester to upgrade in mathematics’ before embarking on his main course work.

 

                  Mrs. Elizabeth Mwibanda

Elizabeth, our social worker has gone to Moi University for further studies in Community Development. This however has increased the load of work in the department to the few people remaining. We want to thank the rest of the team for their willingness and flexibility to work whenever need arises to fill these gaps.

STAFF LEAVE

Mrs. Esther Mwiti Mwendwa