New Life Primary School Uganda
Throughout the year our pupils at Wootton exchange letters with the children at New Life Primary School Uganda.
New Life Primary School Uganda is a community based charity that aims to help those in need , especially children. Uganda has an estimated population of 32,000,000 of which almost 3,000,000, almost 10% are orphans. This number is likely to increase due to the HIV/Aids pandemic which is wiping out a generation of parents. New Life was founded in 2004 by Kiyimba Brown to help these children. New Life currently runs a primary school and an orphange in the Masaka district of Ugnada. The orphanage houses around 20 children as the current facilities cannot hold any more. In August 2010 plans to build a new orphange will begin.
We currently rely on volunteers coming from overseas. The majority of volunteers come from the UK or the Netherlands due to the European Volunteer Service (EVS) that these two countries promote. However, volunteers have arrived at New Life from many different countries. these volunteers provide relief to the full time staff that work for New Life, including teachers at the school and aunties at the orphange.
Children start school at the age of 7 in Uganda, but many start later as they have to work on their farm before they can afford to pay school bills. Many of the children who attend New Life are orphans and have to work and pay their bills. However, thanks to the generous donations of many, New Life can pay these bills for the child so they can start school at the age of 7. Children leave primary school at the age of 14 and go on to 4 more years of secondary then 2 years of college before they can attend university.
New Life school is dedicated to help educate the children of Uganda, but we cannot do this without volunteers and their generous donations. Without them many of the children at New Life would not be there right now.
The last decade has seen a surge in the number of orphans and as many as one third of the under 18 population may be orphaned by the year 2010, according to UNICEF estimates.
This is why volunteers and donations are valuable to New Life Primary.
