Kitale Community Orphans School was the idea of Mike Willetts from Lancashire. Mike travelled to Uganda in 2006 with some funds he had raised without any exact plan of where or how the money would be used, but just wanting to do some good.
After some research he was introduced to the community of Kitale B in Mukono District. The community had no wells, no latrines and no school. Mike asked the village elders what they wanted most and everyone agreed a school for the orphans was their main priority. Education is highly coveted by all ages in Uganda.
Our volunteer program gives the opportunity for the children to learn language skills in a way they normally would not have access too.
Ready to follow in Mike’s footsteps and carry on the good work? Please get in touch and we’ll happily talk you through it.
I have returned regularly to visit the project over the last few years and am very impressed by the way the supporters have both expanded snd improved the small orphan school that I started .
This year in January 2012 a friend of mine Steve Dunstan and I visited the school with several projects in mind but most of all we wanted the school that all the sponsors are so proud of to look good and with the help of the villagers we painted the whole school inside and out to make it look good . please look at the school Jan 2012 page to see details of our visit and also to see just how much fun we had doing it
Mike
Mikes Story
It was in 2002 that I first visited Uganda then it was for purely personal and selfish reasons . Ever since I had seen the film ‘Gorrillas in the mist’ I had wanted to see and be with these wonderful creatures and for my 60th birthday I treated my wife and I for the trip to see them .
As well as visiting the gorillas we also walked several days through the countryside and the vil;lages and there I witnessed real poverty for the first time up close and personal. It is moving on the TV but you are totally isolated from it but walking and staying amongst these people really touched my heart .Yet despite the poverty, deprivation, hunger disease and hardship I saw more smiles and received warmer welcomes than I would ever get in the UK it was heartwarming and at the same time heartbreaking. Also heartrending was the large numbers of orphans we saw.
I also saw many aid workers and fine aid vehicles but never were they seen far from a 4 or 5 star hotel near a big town never did I see them in the areas of real need so I decided that one day I would come back and try to do something different
It was 2006 as I retired before I had time to do anything by that time my wife and I had raised around £5000 and I wanted to see just how much could be done with that amount of money
I paid all my own expenses as I and all the donors and people who now visit the project still do not one penny of donated money is used by us nor will it ever be .
I had based myself at Mukono and with the help of a local organisation located the village of Kitale where little if any aid had ever reached it was only around 100 klms from the capitol Kampala but about a 100 years in time it seemed to me . I asked the villagers what the problems were and they identified the lack of clean water and education as the main sources of worry for them . I told them I could only afford one project they chose education so the children of the village could have a chance of a better life than they
We set about building a school , the King himself generously gave us the land , we made our own bricks the villagers did much of the work although out of fairness I paid the tradesmen such as bricklayers and carpenters for there work as they had families to keep.
I bought books and text books etc we made desks and blackboards and within 3 months we had a school started with just 75 kids all orphans .
With that first £5000 we built the school gave it basic equipment and 3 teachers paid them and ran it for the next two terms and we also fed the kids every day !!!!
We still I believe deliver very good value for money we now in 2012 have 290 children at the school 7 classrooms , an office ,library and staffroom 7 teachers a community liaison officer , a maintenance man and an inspirational project manager in the form of Reginah. We also have a cookhouse and store and still feed the kids every day and have recently started projects to grow our own food and all this on less than £20, 000 a year .
This is now our school we ar all very proud of it and invite you to support us in maintaining the standards which have earned us model school status and to help us build a skills training centre so that the children have a proper job to do when they leave school
