Educate a child from Kibagare Slum at St Martins

Greetings from St Martins School,

It is our hope that you, your families, contacts, and networks are doing well and the last few months since our last report have been as good as you expected.

Here at school and in the kIbgare community despite the challenges due to the pandemic, we are still optimistic that things will change over time.

Education: We are grateful for the fact that we have been able to resume school. We are in the second term of the current year 2021. We reopened school on the 1oth of May Both primary school and secondary school. 

National Exams: The final year students in primary school and secondary school did their national exams in April of 2021 after a 9 months layoff. The results are our, and the students have done exceptionally well considering the challenges they have had in the last two years. We had a total of 74 students in Primary school and 49 Girls in High school sitting the national exams. The overall school performance has improved over time and this is an indication that with the support and goodwill we receive we are able to transform the lives of the students and the community of Kibagare through education.

The number of students graduating and transitioning to high school with 250 marks and above from Primary school has increased in the last 5 years. We have grown our numbers from 32 in 2016 to 53 in the just concluded exams. The same improvement has been registered in the number of girls joining public Universities from the secondary school from 3 in 2017 to a total of 17 in this year's exam.

We are expecting more girls and boys to do well in their exams going forward.

School Feeding: The school feeding program is still ongoing. With school open, we feed the students Monday through to Friday and also on the Saturday Feeding program. We have a population of 726 Boys and Girls in Primary School, from Pre-School to Grade 7 and 166 girls boarding in high school. With the support, we receive we are able to guarantee meals to our students while at school. Were it not the case most of our students would not have the guarantee of a meal.

Community Outreach Program: Thanks to the efforts of our community Coordinator, we have been able to reach out to Members of the community and help them embrace initiatives geared towards improving their lives. Through their Voluntary savings and loan groups, training on entrepreneurship, financial literacy, succession planning, family matters to mention a few. they have been able to increase the number of support groups from 10 in 2018 to 17 groups as of this date. This in return helps them improve the lives of their families and that of their children.

School Toilet Block: We have been able to complete the girls' toilet block thanks to the support we have received to date. 350 girls in primary school are guaranteed cleanliness and hygiene and also serve to dignify them unlike when we had both sets of students sharing the same block. Thanks to you all who fundraised on this.

Your support goes a long way in ensuring that we meet our financial obligations and set objectives in any given year. We appreciate the far that we have come thanks to this support year in year out and we will always strive to do the much we can in the interest of our pupils and the community here at Kibagare.

Thank you and best regards,

St Martins School, Kibagare.