Toys and water

May 08, 2010

It has been a productive year for Friends of Kibooba. As we highlighted in our last newsletter, 2009 was a year of forming new partnerships for Kibooba village in order to continue what FOK started in working with the village to meet their locally defined goals. On this front, US based non-governmental organization (NGO), 4 One World has assumed a major presence at Kibooba primary school and is continuing the school upgrades and taking over the building of income generating projects including the agricultural business poultry business that FOK initiated.

With the school and income generating projects moving forward and in good hands, FOK is focusing its final year on working towards completion of our other outstanding goals and has made substantial progress in the first 5 months of the year thanks to the dedication of our donors, friends and partners.

In March, thanks to the help and generous donation of Friends of Kibooba volunteer, Kyle Matsuba, a Developmental Psychologist, FOK purchased a range of toys for the nursery section of Kibooba school. Through discussions with the teachers, we became concerned that the children were not being engaged in activity based learning but rather a teacher-directed, passive, educational approach. Kyle procured a range of age appropriate manipulative toys, visited the school and helped teach a class on germination i.e. demonstration of a student-centered approach to teaching. Additionally, a cabinet was purchased for Kibooba primary school to house all of the books that FOK has donated over the years plus the new toys (formerly these toys were being housed in the school directors home for protection but were inaccessible to the children on a daily basis).

In March FOK purchased two hand washing stations to be located by the toilets and the eating area. 4 One World volunteers Moira MacLeod and Mary Ann Kudary taught the students how and when to use the stations and did a fun educational session on germ spread. The hand stations are now in use and we have taken one more step towards fighting the debilitating spread of disease.

Additionally, in collaboration with the NGO Wine to Water, Friends of Kibooba provided 3 biosand water filters to Kibooba school. These filters will ensure the children of kibooba have access to safe, clean drinking water. The filters were made in Northern Uganda and were shipped down to the village. We owe thanks to George Okot and Coy Isaacs from Wine to Water, and Matt Downing and Jacob Asperger from 4 One World who coordinated procurement, delivery, installation and training. Additionally Wine to Water will continue to work with FOK to develop and install a rainwater collection system on Kibooba school and the poultry house. We now have a budget and are trying to raise the funds to see the work through to completion; we have just over half of the required funds with an additional $1000 dollars still required.

Finally, we have taken great strides towards creating storybooks for the children of Kibooba. HEALTH Inc., an NGO based in India gave us permission to modify their story books to the Ugandan context. With the help of Friends of Kibooba volunteer, Kyle Matsuba, we chose 5 books that cover a range of topics in hygiene and sanitation, nutrition, social inclusion, etc. Friends of Kibooba hired a translator Petra Namakula (also 4 One World's Ugandan Coordinator) to translate the books into the local language and an illustrator, Justin Igala, through International NGO, Artfully Aware's to illustrate the books and modifying as necessary to Ugandan culture and context. The work continues and we are aiming for completion by September 2010.