Angal Parish Project

Point of Contact: Mr. Lindsay Read
Telephone: 01242 525592
Email: read_family@hotmail.com

There is a web site for the charity, supportingugandaneducation.org.uk, where there are pages about the history of works completed and current appeals, with photos.

Extracts from notes from Fr. Charles & Fr. Denis

12 August 2024
“The rains have destroyed crops and homes. Some domestic animals have also been swept away.”
31 July 2024
“We continue thanking all of you for your heart for us. All of us are very grateful. The children and the parents, as well as the schools, continue to register to you their gratitude. The needy people in whose lives we intervene with the humanitarian aid you send, are in tears of joy. All these aggregate into blessings and graces from heaven for all of you.”
“We humbly pray that, given the possibilities, as you are sending the fees, you send us some humanitarian aid too. The situation here is characteristically not easy in terms of basic sustenance —- food, soap, salt, cooking oil, medical care, clothing. When school children are at home full-time, families face it real hard. We feel for them.”
“We conclude by asking the Lord to open for you all ways for helping us. Know that you have thousands of people here praying for you.”
15 June 2024
"We here mention that the poor in the rural countryside remain in dire need. It's unfortunate every year there is something new that hits northern Uganda. This time it's the closure of Karuma bridge. Bus fares have doubled and transportation has become a challenge as the alternative routes are expensive. Prices of basic commodities have also doubled or even tripled."
"We receive needy people and requests everyday. Yesterday we had to give some the remnants from the lunch of the students. Some small primary children just stay home, to at least eat what may be there. School is worse without food."
It's our humble prayer therefore, that, you kindly send us some aid. People look to us for help, aware we are God's servant, not knowing we ourselves are overwhelmed and in fact have nothing.
Fr. Charles Ohuro and Fr. Denis OCANDA.

Letter From Fr Charles, 18 April 2024

Good morning our friends in the UK,
We recognize your generosity, and in reciprocation, pray that God gives you good health, diverse opportunities and long life.
It's becoming increasingly clear each day that we need aid and need it always. From too hot to too wet now. Roads impassable, homes flooded, newly prepared crop fields washed away. Roofs of some schools blown off, compounds full of water, to the extent children must stay home till the waters subside.
It's our humble prayer therefore, that, you kindly send us some aid. People look to us for help, aware we are God's servant, not knowing we ourselves are overwhelmed and in fact have nothing.
May God be with us all and protect us as befits his providence.
In the Risen Lord,
Fr. Charles Ohuro and Fr. Denis OCANDA.

2024 Appeal

For 2024, the school fees have increased again and we are trying to support 60 students at a cost of over £6000 per term. We need more regular standing order donors and hope our donors can donate more. There are still food shortages and high prices, so that some people need aid. Nonetheless, FR. Charles and Fr. Denis want to do another project.

PRIMARY SCHOOL CLASSROOMS

Fr. Charles and Fr. Denis have formed a three year plan to build classrooms. They wrote:

"The years 2024-2026, we think we should handle classrooms for areas where primary schools are too far away. "

"The issue is that most villages here are without schools. Children in some instances travel 5kms to and 5kms from school, bare feet, come rain, come sunshine. There are also cases where established primary schools have insufficient buildings."

"The villages identified for now are Kikobe, Asili and Akanyo."

"For 2024, we would like to be helped to construct a 3-classroon block, with an annex office, in Kikobe. The parents and locals have begun a school in makeshift shelters. They are ready to avail local materials. They need money for factory items."

The estimated total cost for this is £37,000. Of this, the locals can provide about £22,000 and so they have asked us for about £15,000.

Donations may be made in the Parish Project envelopes or online at: supportingugandaneducation.org.uk

2023 Report

For 2023, Fr. Charles and Fr. Denis asked for more help with school fees along with a project to supply single person school desks. There was again a need for humanitarian aid after two failed harvests. The first one had not enough rain and the second had floods. For school fees, we had been sending about £3770 per term. This year, they asked for about £5600 to fund 100 students with the parents/guardians also contributing about £2600. This is more students than we have done before and school fees had risen sharply.

Increasing our monthly contributions of £15 which began in 2012 to £25 would just about cover it with the gift aid, but not everyone could do that. We topped up the school fee grant from general donations. They used it to pay all the costs, not just tuition fees, for 60 students, 30 at Fr. Charles school, Panyango Senior Secondary school, and 30 at another in the diocese. We sent a total of over £16,000 for the year.

For a project, our Ugandan trustees selected school desks. These are needed for use in lessons and exams. The government requires that the national exams be taken on single person desks. If the school does not have these, the students have to travel to a school that does, at their school's expense. The desks provide a much less distracting work environment than the shared desks in use and save the school the cost of the students travel to exams, a significant expense. They cost about £60 each. 150 desks were required and the school had some funds available, so we needed to raise about £8000. Happily, we were awarded a grant of over £10,593 by The Economist Charitable Trust and the project was a success. We sent a total of £9.000, which covered price increases and transport costs.

We continued sending about £2000 in humanitarian aid along with the school fees and onother occasions when requested for a total of over £13,000. We also had an appeal for help with Christmas festivities. There was a collection at the Christmas reconciliation service, raising £281.65. Along with other donations, we were able to send £457. Fr. Denis reported that they had good celebrations.

Annual Trustee Reports

TRUSTEE'S ANNUAL REPORT 01/01/2021 – 31/12/2021 The year began with more classes returning to school and the food situation better. We asked Fr. Charles and Fr. Denis whether it would be possible to do the project requested last year, solar lighting for St. Thomas Aquinas secondary school, Akanyo. They thought it could go ahead, so we asked how they think our resources should be divided between school fees, humanitarian aid and the solar project. For the April term, we sent school fees for 70 students and £1000 of aid. In May, we paused the humanitarian aid appeal and embarked on fundraising for the solar project by an appeal at St. Gregory's parish, Cheltenham, an appeal to our regular standing order donors and an appeal to friends and family through our personal Facebook accounts. To accept donations we set up a campaign on Virgin Money Giving using our account. The appeal had raised over £3500 of a target of £5000, when schools were closed again in June due to covid 19. Food shortages arose again and we suspended the solar appeal and renewed the appeal for humanitarian aid donations. We sent a tranche of aid in August, but there continued to be shortages. Home working for students began in September with materials provided by the schools for a fee. We used our school fee donations to help those who could not afford the fee. Donations continued to come in for aid and we sent another grant with the school fees in September. In November, we also appealed again to the charity Farmers Overseas Action Group, which operates in Uganda and had some unrestricted funds, who gave us £500. In December, we sent school fees in anticipation of schools re-opening in January and another grant of aid. In total, we granted aid of £8928 up to Christmas, helping over 350 people, including about 150 children, mainly with food and some clothing and kitchen wares. The total for school fees was £10098.50. In November, Virgin Money Giving closed and we registered the charity with Paypal Giving Fund to continue to collect donatons online. We go into 2022 expecting the need for humanitarian aid to continue and hoping the schools stay open and the solar project is completed. So there will be a continuing need for school fee grants and appeals for aid or for capital works for schools. Regular standing order donations held up with some stopping and some increasing and we continue to use these, along with the Gift Aid, for school fees for secondary students.
TRUSTEE'S ANNUAL REPORT 01/01/2022 – 31/12/2022 The year began with schools normal and the food situation still poor. We had sent £2000 aid with the January school fees grant in December 2021, so that the aid would arrive before Christmas. We did that this year with the school fees in April and August and also another £2000 in January. We paid fees for about 70 students. The solar power project for St. Thomas Aquinas secondary school, Akanyo, could not be done in 2021 because of lockdowns and school closures. The fundraising had been successful, so in March, we offered to send the grant for the solar power project. It was a year since the quote was given, so we asked if it would be enough. The new quote was higher, but we had enough and sent it. Transport and supply chain challenges delayed implementation of the works and caused a small shortfall in our grant. We sent a top up with the April school fees. Work did not start until September and finished in October. The total grant that we sent was £8400. Regular standing order donations held up with some stopping and some increasing and we continue to use these, along with the Gift Aid, for school fees for secondary students.