Rubaga Friends
- a non-profit, tax-exempt charity
See other pages:
www.rubagafriends.org
rubagafriends@gmail.com
Since the beginning, support for the basic program for the Rubaga School and its children has been $21,000 per year. At its outset in January 2008, the program was given a five years duration. The target dollar amount is, of course, contingent upon sufficient contributions to Rubaga Friends.
Improved nutrition uses two -thirds of the total support budget. All students have lunch and the boarders get all their meals at the school.Nutrition – $14,800 per year
The children’s diet has been dominated by starch food items, such as green bananas, egg plants, corn meal, potatoes, yams, and squash. Occasionally, a bean or nut sauce was added to the meal. The support enables a better dietary balance by adding more protein rich food items.
Health care – $1,200 per year
The money helps to pay for necessary medicine and visits to doctor and hospital, and for regular nurse visits to the school. Transportation of sick children to doctor or hospital is very expensive, which is another obstacle for providing sufficient health care to the 300 children.
Education – $5,000 per year for wage increases
Only by solving acute nutrition and health care problems can the children make full use of the education offered by the school. Education is the key to a brighter future giving the children the opportunity to become self-sufficient and productive adults. Teachers are typically paid on the order of 1/2 of wages for teachers in state schools. Even with the about 50% raise based on the Rubaga Friends support average wages are very lowd. Still, the raise makes it easier to attract and retain good teachers and st.
Sister school program
The sister school project between the Rubaga School and the Sam Hughes Elementary School in Tucson is an important part of our program. Exchange of letters, crafts and other materials are popular activities for children, teachers and parents at both schools.
Click here to read about our partnership with SIFE
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The Rubaga Friends Support Budget
US Dollars per year
Improvement of meals 14,800
14,800Improved healthcare 1,200
1,200Increased salaries, teachers and staff 5,000
Basic support program 21,000
21,000
Meals were earlier dominated by starch food items
Roseanne DeCesari with shirt sent to all Rubaga students
Site for a permanent kinderarten structure. Anette Stryhn, vice president of ICWS, in the foreground.
BASIC SUPPORT PROGRAM
Click here to see information
about ICWS
Visit the SIFE website
Visit the ICWS website
Community based activity
Rubaga Friends has a network of generous individual supporters, most of them in the Tucson area.
An important part of our program is the established relationship and exchange of letters, drawings, crafts, and more between the Rubaga Community School and the Sam Hughes Elementary School in Tucson. More information can be found at the page, SISTER SCHOOLS. Then principal of the Sam Hughes Elementary Shool, Roseanne DeCesari, organized nicely decorated T-shirts to be sent to all children at the Rubaga Schoo; see picture to the right.
As already mentioned, Rotary in Tucson has also been very supportive with its textbook grant.
Students In Free Enterprise, SIFE, at the University of Arizona in Tucson is another valuable partner. SIFE teams engage in various outreach activities. In the spring of 2008, SIFE organized a book drive together with the Sam Hughes Elementary School in Tucson and shipped more than 900 books to help the Rubaga Community School establish a library. In early 2009 a new drive was organized together with the Sam Hughes Elementary School to collect and ship toys, school materials and more to the children in Rubaga.
We also keep close contact with International Child Welfare Service. ICWS is a Danish charity organization. It supports disadvantaged children in India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Uganda, Rwanda and Bulgaria. Its activity is mainly based on sponsorships for individual, needy children. Each donor commits to paying a fixed monthly amount for the sponsored child. The money is transferred to pay for tuition, school materials, lodging etc. for children who have no other provider. ICWS manages 50 individual adopt-a-child sponsorships for children at the Rubaga Community School.
Arrival of library books donated by SIFE
Other support activities
Whenever possible, the basic support progtam is expanded in various ways. Richard Flieger, owner of Renaissance Computer and member of the Rubaga Friends Board has donated five computers to the school, giving a significant lift to both office work and computer education.
Rubaga Friends has supported purchase of equipment to prevent and extinguish fire with $1,000. During a period, an alarming number of fires were started at other schools. Very sadly there have been many fatalities of Ugandan school children. The school has hired security guards to keep watch around the clock.
Through his membership of Pima Rotary Club Dave Flieger, another Board member, initiated a Rotary project, which enabled the Rubaga Community School to acquire textbooks for the four main educational topics, math, English, science and social studies. The Rotary grant amounted to $4,000 of which Rubaga Friends provided about one-third. Together with the small stock of textbooks already at the school the Rotary grant makes it possible for the students in the seven Primary School classes to avail of a full set of textbooks, which significatly improves teaching and learning.
The school badly needs a vehicle for transportation of sick children to the doctor or hospital. There is also a great need of transporting the children to places where they can engage in play and sports, activities that cannot be accommodated at the extremely over-crowded city site of the school. With an owned vehicle the school could pick up its food supplies at much lower prices at markets outside the city. During their visits to Kampala, members of the Rubaga Friends have explored the feasibility of purchasing an adequate passenger van. .
Rubaga Friends recently paid for a new internet modem and for a replacement computer to the school office.
Until now, the biggest project besides the basic support program is the new kindergarten building. The Family and Friends of Grammoo and The Dr. David Jacoby Memorial Fund have contributed over $22,000 a large sum, which made the kindergarten project possible. it possible to build a much needed kindergarten building. It will be ready for use in the summet of 2010. More information is available at the Home Page, which can be reached via the navigation menu (upper-left of this page).
Teachers and staff, October 2008
Earlier, lack of textbooks kept the blackboard very busy
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Rady to unpack textbooks from Pima Rotary Club
