See these sweet students?
They were expelled from school yesterday.
Here in America, you don’t get kicked out of school unless you do something really awful, repeatedly. And even then, you don’t have to fall behind in learning. You get sent to an alternative school, or they enroll you in cyber school at home.
Even when an American kid royally messes up, he or she still gets an education.
But, that’s not the case in Uganda. These children didn’t do anything wrong. They were expelled simply because their orphanage director didn’t have the money to pay their tuition in full at the start of their school term. The school director gave him a two-week grace period, which ended Friday — with the fees still unpaid.
So these orphans were told not to come back until he had the money.
Breaks. My. Heart!
To us, what they need is not a lot. Most of us have spent more than this on one restaurant meal this week. There are three school terms each year in Uganda, and each costs approximately $40 per child. Another $10 covers necessary supplies, such as paper, pens, pencils and workbooks. So for $50 per term, or $150 a year, a child gets a good education.
These children know that it’s a privilege to go to school. They work hard and set big goals for themselves.
Dan always places at or near the top of his class of 74 pupils.
Haawa dreams of becoming a doctor so she can help the people of her community.
Tony is always enthusiastic about his schoolwork and tells everyone that education is the light.
And, next week all of them will start falling behind unless we do something to help.
As I said, I’m not talking about a ton of money. There are 25 children in Pastor Ronald’s care. That’s only $1250 to get all of them back in class. Anything that any of us can contribute will help make a difference.
Please visit THIS page on the ministry’s website for information on how to donate. If you would prefer to pool a smaller amount with other donations I collect, please contact me privately through this site and and I will give you information on how to do so.
I thank you in advance! And I can tell you from experience that helping an orphan receive an education feels a thousand times better than having a meal here, or covering your iPad with this, or drinking one of these every day next week!
The difference between here and there–so many “theres,” out there!–is that going to school, here, too often does not mean getting an education. Whether the fault of the school boards, the school districts, the teachers, the parents, or–gasp!–the students, themselves, too many of our high school graduates still can’t know what a sentence is, how to punctuate it or end it. They’re clueless when they’re told to write a coherent, cohesive, well-developed paragraph. They have been coddled, babied, passed along despite their failure to demonstrate any level of mastery of the core subjects, and they think they’ve gotten an “education.” They don’t know how to think; they’ve been told too long what to think.
Our system has long failed them, and some of them wake up when they go to community colleges and realize that they were lied to, with all those smiley faces; all that partial credit on math tests doesn’t mean they learned how to do basic math, and do it correctly.
Reading? Please. When I was teaching at our community college, we had students coming in who were reading at an 8th-grade level, or lower–and those “levels” would not come near matching the grade levels of the ’50s.
I’m sorry. I did not intend to hijack your post. It is a beautiful, poignant post, and my heart breaks when I read such pieces. That’s why we are sponsoring children of poverty in eight developing nations, all through an organization who works to develop the children in every area of their lives. We know they are truly getting the education they value and deserve.