Namugongo Secondary & Vocational School

Namugongo School is a secondary school that mainly takes in orphans and has a small primary school section. It is based on the outskirts of Kampala and looks to onto lush countryside. The accommodation for the children is not cramped and it is a large sprawling campus with plenty of space for sport and socialising. The classrooms are spacious and quite well resourced.

The school is still developing its vocational skills department but they intend to start running courses in 2009.

Gilbert’s story

Gilbert was the head boy at Railway Primary school and was offered a place at Namugongo School through LfL sponsorship. He spent the first year there and loves the school. He thoroughly enjoys learning and at the end of this year his marks placed him 2^nd out of the whole year group of 93 pupils. Without LFL support Gilbert would have no future in education. He is highly intelligent and a hard worker but opportunities for him to develop would be very limited.

Gilbert is an orphan and has no one special to stay with during holidays so for him school time is the best time. I first met Gilbert in September when he was passed a letter to take to the headmaster at the school. Some weeks later I visited the school and the headmaster told me the following story about Gilbert.

He got a boda-boda to the school with his bags for the start of term 3. In his urgency of passing the note to the head teacher, he ran straight into the school leaving his bag on the back of the motorbike. Instead of leaving the bag in the gate house the driver took off with his bag. Gilbert didn’t complain but walked to the village leader’s home and told him what the driver had done. He described the bike and the registration number. The village leader knew the bike and knew where the driver would be stopping for lunch so they went to the bar. Outside was the bike with Gilbert’s bag on it and the driver sitting having a beer. Bag recovered Gilbert went back to school.