Beauty and poverty, opportunities and challenges, dreams and needs…Uganda. It is for her children that we work to build a school…and thus to Build Hope in Kids.

Last May, BHIK-U purchased a 1.4 acre parcel of land adjacent to the sports fields. It’s on a hillside. It’s been planted with East African bananas, what we call “plantains”. Hopefully, with favorable rainy seasons, the trees will be bearing fruit in a couple of years. The fruit will be cooked and mashed to provide matoke (“mah-TOH-keh”) for the school. It’s considered the national dish of Uganda, and is eaten at most meals, served with a sauce or stew, often with vegetables - - and occasionally with meat - - for the 975 or so students and staff members. That’s a LOT of matoke! (And they don’t have electric food processors there!!)

Greetings from Uganda and from our school St. Patrick Nursery and Primary School.

In this issue of the newsletter allow me share with you about our secondary school sponsored students and how they are doing. They are now a totals of 63 in number attending 11 different secondary schools.

St. Joseph's vocational school for boys is nearby, in Mbarara. The farthest away is Namagunga Secondary School in Kampala, about 166 miles from Mbarara. Immaculate Heart is an all girls school in Rukungiri, in the same district as my parish. There are 5 seminary high schools being attended by a total of 12 boys. Ntungamo High School (which has majority of our students) is a co-ed secondary school in Ntungamo District, about 40 miles from Mbarara.

I selected these schools for their quality, Catholic foundation and moderate school fees structure that can be paid for by sponsorship money equivalent to the $240 per term at St. Patrick's. The parents and guardians are only responsible for buying school supplies and providing transport to their children.

Allow me to also highlight that on our last visitation day by the parents last term (term 1) our kids played the brass band and there was ecstasy as parents cheered them on and the students with the band members matched through the neighborhood for about two miles and returned to school. This was a great addition and we thank the donors who bought the band instruments and uniforms. A picture is attached.

Second term began on Saturday 24th May, 2025 with boarding students reporting and classes starting officially on Monday May 26, 2025. We are now excited that we are introducing sewing/tailoring classes for 5th and 6th graders. The classes will be scheduled for the weekend and both boys and girls will be attending those classes.

On another exciting note, we have secured a new school bus and we are looking forward to enjoying a new ride. We cannot thank enough our community of supporters for enabling us to get what we need for the students to be comfortable and learn as expected.

May the Lord continue to bless you for your generosity.

On April 26th BHIK-U celebrated our 8th anniversary. Building Hope in Kids - Uganda was incorporated as a nonprofit organization 4/26/2017. We didn’t imagine at that time how far our mission and Father’s dream would come in 8 years! We began raising money “brick by brick” with donations (even birthday money from grade school students!), then expanded fundraising to selling T-shirts, pounds of coffee, haircuts, and tickets to ballgames. Construction began in 2018. Our first school year began in February, 2019 with the classroom building also providing living quarters for boarding students on the second floor. Meals, Masses and assemblies were held in the dining/all-purpose hall for the 318 students. Our campus has expanded from 4.5 to approximately 7 acres, with 923 students and a staff of over 60 making full use of 12 buildings, 4 sports fields, and two water wells. Our students have achieved excellent scores in the annual national exams, and 253 of them are being sponsored (including secondary schools). Their own dreams are amazing: civil engineer, surgeon, cardiologist, orphanage founders, priest, religious Brother… because of the hope they’ve been given by so many supporters of BHIK-U. 

Back of the new bus with an aerial view of BHIK-U campus

Building Hope in Kids - Uganda

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