Our supermarket collectors have been very successful in 2011, raising a total of £2,592.

The two-day collection at Morrisons on Friday 8th and Saturday 9th July raised a record £701.54.

Previous best results were £700 in October 2009 and £699 in October 2010.

Well done everyone who helped.

A new classroom is currently under construction at Mukibugu Primary School in memory of Howard and Hilda Budden.

Click here for details and pictures. New pictures added on 12th December 2011.

This has had a dramatic result.

When David Epidu toured the schools in early September he found new glass being fitted everywhere.

..... and this was at Bukazi.

Perhaps part of the problem is the number of men it takes to fit a pane of glass?

The work at Mukibugu had already been completed.

One of the trustees is willing to donate a putty knife for future repairs!

But at least they are done.

Of course, some repairs are beyond the ability of the villagers. Eden found this broken water storage tank at Kabami school.

The problem with plastic tanks is that they become brittle after long periods in strong sunlight. Concrete tanks are much more expensive but are much better in the long term.

The trustees have decided to replace the tank at Kabami with a 25 cubic metre capacity concrete tank.

This will cost approximately £4,000.

Eden had reported that the main road into Kisoro from Kampala had been greatly improved since he was there previously. However, that doesn't apply to the local roads to our schools.

It was quite difficult because the rain was much most of the days, the first time and third day I had to hire a vehicle to go the schools.

Actually the first day was terrible as we found that the road between Nyakabaya and Rurembwe was closed and some good Samaritan had to bring stones in his truck to put on the bad part of the road for others to pass.

They had to charge everyone Shs 10,000/= to allow you to cross. You can see the work in one of the pictures. Hiring a car was Shs 80,000/= plus Shs 60,000/= for fuel for a day.

William told me that, by the time you be here, rains would have reduced and his 4WD pick will be repaired for us in case of bad weather.

The day I travelled to Kisoro our bus broke down at a round 1.30 am and we had to stay in one spot for three hours for the bus to be fixed, but I still enjoyed the experience. What I wanted was to reach Kisoro the next day, so we actually reached there at around 11.00 am in the morning hours.

(Shs 10,000 is about £2.50)

Some time ago ACE applied for a grant from the charity funds of the international publishing company, Reed Elsevier.

We are delighted to announce that we have been awarded $10,000 and we have now received £6,101.

We are very grateful to Reed Elsevier for their support. The money is specifically for the purchase of textbooks for our schools.

Eden Quayle has recently been revisiting the schools in Uganda.

He sentback reports to the ACE trustees about maintainence work needed at each school and is also wrote several blogs.

To read his blogs click here. Latest blogs added on 20th August.

ACE supporters have recently held their own fundraisers.

Click here for details.

Our annual Open Gardens event was held on Sunday 19th June.

For details click here

ACE has a developing 'support group' in Scarborough, North Yorkshire.

Click here to read about their latest fundraising event.

When he visited the schools again in June 2011 he found that the teachers at Gitenderi had also decorated the outside walls of their new ACE classrooms.

Their designs consisted of drawings of agricultural implements.

Angela reports -

The connection was made at about 2.40 and the Humphry Davy students introduced themselves to the Vision students. There were about 11 UK students and maybe 8 from Vision.

I was so proud of the Ugandan students as their English was excellent and very clear and they were not phased at all by the modern technology.

They ranged from S1 to S6 and two of them were ACE-sponsored students. William Balibutsa, the Kisoro Area School Inspector,and Dan Munyambaba, the Director of Vision School were also there and wanted to speak as well.

Simeon Royle, one of the Assistant Heads at Humphry Davy, invited Dan and William and some students to the UK in Oct for an International meeting which is being held in Cornwall.

Hopefully this link will continue.

Adjoining block to be rebuilt

The interiors of the classrooms were being painted. They will come into use when the new term starts after the Easter holidays.

All we need now are the desks ............

• to pay for the emptying of the latrines at Rurembwe and Nyakabaya and for repairs to the latrines at Rukongi
• to pay Shs.193,000 (about £55) to complete the Girls' Private Room at Rurembwe
• to pay Shs.298,000 (close to £100) to finish the latrines at Kabami
• to start to build an additional classroom at Mukibugu, but not until the classrooms at Rukongi are completed. This should be about 2 weeks.
• to have an appeal on JustGiving to try to obtain more desks for both pupils and teachers
• to hold a coffee morning at Chynoey on the May Bank Holiday - Monday 2nd May

Nancledra Primary School have donated £123 to ACE and asked that it be spent on desks. It will be enough to provide 5 desks.

A day or two later we received £230 from Alverton Primary School which will buy another 9 desks.

We are very grateful to both schools.

As we have recently completed the new 4-classroom block at Gitenderi School and are currently building at Rukongi we are going to need a lot more desks, so these donations are a great help.

If you would like to assist please check out our Desk Donation page.

David Epidu with Luke Pye

• Actually all schools are suffering from having a lack of furniture, desks and teachers furniture, so I think we need to work on this problems, so that our pupils are seated comfortably when they in classrooms for better studies.
• Two schools are very uncomfortable, since they have got not enough latrines for the pupils (sanitation very important than any thing).
• We need to think of providing our schools with metallic sports equipment, other than using wooden poles as they are always being destroyed by termites and people moving around during holidays take them for cooking.
• ACE schools are the best respected schools in the whole district because of the projects that have been put in through the effort of the charity.
• Teachers from other school come and ask me how they could join this ACE school because of the good relationship the schools have with the outside world and equipment the schools get from ACE.
• These schools are also being respected by the District officials because of ACE.
• They are among the best shining schools in the whole District and most respected.
• These schools have the happiest children because of the activities like games good learning condition and now the teachers are learning to be committed to their duties so as to make their pupils perform better than others from other schools.
• The schools are receiving big numbers of pupils because of the good news about sponsorship for bright pupils.
• Parents also like to bring their children because of the white volunteer students from UK who come and do various activities in these schools during their holidays.

William reported -

The teachers were told about the history of ACE's involvement and they discussed how the schools had benefited from the charity in detail, school by school. To most of the teachers, this was new information. They were also informed of our visit to the UK and also told how funds to help our schools are raised.

All this was intended to show the teachers that some people in the UK are working very hard to help educate our children and a lot has been achieved. What we must now do is to continue to improve on our academic performance standards.

We made a baseline assessment. The teachers outlined the problems each school had, ranging from poor attendance of both teachers and pupils to lack of sufficient instructional and resource management, not excluding poor assessment management of pupils' learning.

We discussed activities to improve on our standards. Out of the list of many gaps identified, it was agreed that they be prioritised as follows -

1. Management of registers of pupils by marking them daily, without missing, and making follow up of the children who absent themselves regularly.

2. Having daily informal morning staff meetings to clear off any eventualities that can lead to the children missing lessons.

3. Setting standards in every school that will check proper utilisation of instructional and resource management.

4. Setting a level of attainment and emphasising the management of homework and other remedial instructions.

• to be presentable and disciplined and to stick to the teachers' code of conduct
• to meet again like this in April and evaluate themselves together with their headteachers and the Inspector
• that the Inspector visits every school at least once a fortnight
• that we think of prizes to give to teachers and headteachers who perform well to create a spirit of competition
• that we revive the sports activities by competing for the Eden Cup
• that the education office does not remove teachers from their schools

In the final remarks on behalf of the teachers, the headmaster of Gitenderi Primary School expressed the importance of the workshop and requested this to be happening periodically until ACE schools pick up a culture where good standards can be sustained.

Otherwise, on my behalf as an Inspector of schools, I got an opportunity to express to them what is expected of them.

Secondary Schools in Uganda are rated annually in a league table, according to their O Level exam results. The results for 2010 have recently been published and Kisoro Vision School, which is attended by the students enrolled in the ACE Sponsorship Scheme, has done well.

It is rated 144th nationally, out of 3,206 secondary schools in Uganda. In the Kisoro area it is the top school, followed by St. Gertrude's School, which was ranked 385th. In the previous year Vision was ranked 156th.

ACE sponsors are this year enabling a further nine students to join the School.

The long running Radio 4 programme, Desert Island Discs, featured ACE's patron, Jon Snow on Sunday 30th January.

The school reports for the third term of 2010 for the students studying at Kisoro Vision Secondary School under the ACE Student Sponsorship Scheme have now arrived.

They have been scanned and copies will be e-mailed to sponsors soon.

The fourth quarter of 2010 was ACE's best yet on easyfundraising with £142.87 being raised by supporters shopping online.

Thank you to the 74 people who are signed up to use the system which has now raised over £1,230 for our funds.

This is the rear view of the building.

We were aiming to get everything will be completed in time for the commencement of the new school year in January 2011.

David reported to the ACE trustees -

• The building which was started a month ago, is now at the roofing level, it was costed at about Shs 55million.
• The contractor thinks this building will be finished by the end of this year, ready for use when the schools open their new term next year.
• The money has been paid, but the contractor is asking for more money for putting up the retaining wall to hold the soil from being washed off the verandah.
• Shs 595,000/= (about £170) top up is needed for more sand, bricks, cement and transport. No labour to be added.
• The parents and community are really very happy and thanking Angela and her team for the generous donation of this four-classroom block.
• So far I visited the site and the work is very wonderful.
• The headteacher and his staff are expecting big numbers of pupils to join the school next term, since it's going to be one of the top shining schools in Kisoro District.

This picture was sent by David in early January 2011 and shows the roof on and fascia boards being fitted.

Some of the external rendering is also complete and windows with protective metal grills have been fitted.

..... and this is the view from the back.