Dear Sir,
Warm greetings from Minja in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ on behalf of management, staff, children, parents and the entire community!
The year 2016 comes to a close with a major focus shifting to the school’s First Annual Graduation Ceremony and Christmas party for the children. This is the process of passing out KIII (Nursery Top class) officially awarding them Certificates to join Primary level. This was a big function officiated by the District Education Officer (DEO) for Omoro district.
You will be able to watch the video recordings when you visit us next year.
I can generally comment that your sponsorship has enabled us achieved greatly in 2016 despite some challenges we encountered among others as hereunder highlighted;
Achievements
- The school got a donation of a bus that has improved a lot the efficiency of transport of children and other amenities. We are so grateful to you and the organization for this major achievement of 2016!
- 33 nursery top class KIII children were graduated to join primary section.
- With your support we have been able to fence the school all round remaining with putting up the gate to control entrance to school.
- Our 3 nursery teachers, 1 primary teacher and now the director also received their monthly salaries promptly who are being sponsored as well as the support to the children.
- Thank you for sponsoring the construction of school kitchen that came in so timely when the old temporary structure broke down in the middle of the year.
- The school sickbay is under construction to be in use next year 2017; this closes the continuous demand by the school commission on this challenge.
- The school land was not wide enough to accommodate all the buildings and also have standard playground, we have been able to acquire a separate piece of land for playground with the help of l-a-p.
- We were able to launch computer lessons for primary section which kickstarted very successfully and being examined
Challenges
- Climatic weather change affected food productions so badly resulting into food crisis. So many parents were not able to bring food items as agreed forcing the school to enter in spending not planned for.
- Reading library for both teachers and children still a gap.
- Failure of parents to pay agreed fees which result into children dropping out of school.
- Playground still a challenge to be leveled
- Salary arrears for teachers not under sponsorship
- Few computers makes it challenging to conduct computer lessons besides power/electricity challenge, we have been borrowing generator from Gulu church.
- Demand for salary increment; for the last two years there has not been any increase to teachers and staff salaries. We are not so sure how many will continue with us next year especially nursery teachers because the government is introducing nursery in government schools next year which is going to attract many nursery teachers as they pay highly.
Major School Requirements of 2017
- Costumes for participation/competition in music, dance and drama next year
- Sports equipments and sponsorship for the school to participate in football and netball interschool competition
- Repair of desks, doors, windows and play materials
- Draining of latrine
- Construction of P.5 classroom and furnishing the class with desks, teacher’s table and chair
- Gate for school
- Construction of dormitory for boys and girls and furnishing with beds
- Medical supply to the sickbay and salary for the school nurse
- Need for power supply such as transformer, generator or solar.
Conclusion
A million thanks to you, l-a-p, board members, sponsors and all stakeholders who have contributed to make our dream come true to have this School take off and continue to date; a lot has been done which cannot be mentioned all in this short report. Thank you for your counsel and individual support to Gulu church which is now being roofed. Papa Becker, you were not able to visit us in 2016; this had a big negative impact to us, sorry to say; I request that if it were possible, you could continue with your visit schedule as you were doing before.
Wishing you all the best; Merry Christmas and a very prosperous New Year 2017!
Yours Sincerely,
Michael Oloyi
Director – Grace Community NPS – Minja