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By Sarah Henry

As the Pathfinders are transitioning into the next phase of their journey, Ghana, Wendy shares a reflection on their time in Uganda. She takes a look at race relation in Uganda — not just at the common conception of whites against blacks, but at the tension between Indians and Ugandan Africans.  Her post is a great reminder of the dangers of stereotyping an entire group of people with one sweeping generalization:

This man told us point blank that Indians are selfish. They keep to themselves and try to take all of Uganda’s money for themselves. He tried to make a compliment to us by comparing us to Indians.  Whites are interested in sitting down with Africans. Whites want to meet with Africans and make friends with them. When we asked what would happen if Indians came into this “bar” looking to sit down with us what would happen. The man rejected the idea outright.  He said, “Would never happen.” But, we prodded, just pretending that it did happen, hypothetically, what would happen?  This man would not play the game. “An Indian would not come,” he said. Maybe the Indian would not come, but it sounds to me like the Indian is not welcome. 

As Conor, Wendy, Ben, and Michelle move on to their next nation, sure to bring new lessons, new challenges, and amazing stories, experience Uganda through Wendy’s camera lens.

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By Sarah Henry

The Pathfinders are now well into their stay at the Mustard Seed School in Busota, Uganda, and while there are similarities to Kasese, every new situation presents new challenges.

Like in Kasese, Conor Robinson has something to say about the religious standardized tests given to every Ugandan student. His most recent post regarding the Uganda education system deals with the fact that religious education is imbedded in every class, including a basic comprehensive English lesson! 

Also, like Kasese, the Pathfinders are forced to deal with personal questions and comments every day.  Not only is this experience meant to teach humanism and give to these communities, but the Pathfinders are also there to provide a glimpse into the United States whenever the children, or the teachers themselves, inquire.  Wendy touches on the education aspect of this challenge as she reviews a discussion that she and Michelle had with students in which homosexuality, gay marriage, straight marriage, war, gun rights, and dowries were just a few of the controversial topics.  Michelle also has run into personal questions that require delicate handling. When a teacher came to her and requested not only that she take a picture of him, but also that she show it to family members, she worked through possible solutions and came up with an apropos explanation of the situation.  She also handles the disbelief at her unmarried and childless state with grace.

While the Pathfinders are working to spread education and goodwill, they also deal with personal struggles.  Michelle recently killed her first bug! (And enjoyed a bug-bite free night.) 

Soon, the Pathfinders will be in Ecuador, working with FBB’s Q4 Poverty and Health beneficiary, Water Ecuador. Don’t forget to check out Conor’s article about Pathfinders Project in the latest issue of American Atheist.

By Conor Robinson, Pathfinders Project director

The Pathfinders arrived in Kasese, Uganda, after nearly 30 hours of travel from Cambodia. Plenty of time to reflect on the completion of one project even as we prepared for the next.

I am pleased to report that our time in Cambodia allowed us to accomplish what we set out to do. Through our service, we facilitated authentic interactions with the Cambodians that far surpassed what we would have been able to communicate by language alone. We gained an understanding of the problems Cambodians face, and the long-term projects a Humanist Action: Ghana could undertake to address them in partnership with Bridge of Life School. Humanists with entrepreneurial experience could have a significant impact on the business ventures that support Bridge of Life School’s educational programming, and humanists with education experience could shape the programming itself.

Humanist volunteers could also bolster Bridge of Life School’s clean water efforts. Nearly all rural Cambodians pollute their own water supply with their waste. Cambodians living on lakes or rivers use these waters as bathrooms and then fish or draw water from them. Cambodians living on dry land make toilet ditches that are just above the water table. If we return to Cambodia with the Humanist Action: Ghana, we could design and implement a multiyear education, outreach, and construction project around getting Cambodians to use composting toilets.

Of course, there are many other areas where a Humanist Action: Ghana could focus its efforts. In the 28 years since the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime, the Cambodian government has not only failed to build functioning civic structures, it has actively participated in the plundering and selling of Cambodian resources and land, all while pocketing hundreds of millions of dollars in aid money each year and even confiscating emergency food rations and selling those, too. Schooled in a culture of corruption and living on salaries too meager to survive, Cambodian schoolteachers demand daily bribes from their students in order to sit in class or have tests graded. Police officers will not investigate crimes unless the victims are able to pay. Even when convictions are made, perpetrators walk free after little to no jail time if they are able to sufficiently pad the judge’s pockets.

Thousands of years ago, the kings of Angkor built reservoirs and irrigation systems that allowed Cambodian farmers to harvest three or four rice crops per year. Now, Cambodia has almost no irrigated farmland and it is the sole Asian country that grows only one yearly rice crop. Through surviving writings, we know that in the year 245 Cambodians lived in one-room huts mounted on poles and cooked their meals over open fires under clay pots set atop three stones. Their bathrooms were open pits behind their homes. Not much has changed, and in many ways it has gotten worse.

Twenty-five percent of Cambodians have hepatitis B or C. Sixty-three percent have tuberculosis. 10,000 people, mostly children, die of diarrhea-related diseases every year. Five women die of childbirth every day. The average Cambodian makes less than $600 per year. More than one-third of the population lives on less than $1 per day.  

Despite all of the above, Cambodians remain a remarkably warm and open people, and it was difficult to depart from the friends we made there. If you haven’t already, I encourage you to read my post about the “Loving Kindness” that Cambodia’s Buddhist monks recognized in our humanism, or Ben’s post about the bonds we created during our week in rural Kampong Thom. The pictures on the website say more about our connections with our students than any post could.

Even as we are in full teaching swing in Uganda, I encourage you once again to contribute to Bridge of Life School. The organization is doing fantastic work, and even though it is structured so that the revenue from its business ventures supports its educational programming, its reach is expanded by donations.

The Pathfinders also need your support, as does Kasese Humanist Primary School. A donation to Pathfinders Project while we are in Kasese has a direct impact on the lives of Ugandan students. As much good as KHPS is doing, and it really is a bastion of reason in a country of state-supported religious indoctrination, the school is severely limited by its resources. Donating to the Pathfinders will have an immediate impact at the school in the form of pens, pencils, exercise books, chalk, and sports equipment, all of which are sorely needed.

Uganda Humanist Schools Trust has twice been featured as FBB’s Education beneficiary (in 2010 and 2011). We’re pleased to hear about their recent successes in bringing humanist education to students in Uganda.

• UHST hosted their first teacher conference, bringing together teachers and support staff from four humanist school campuses to discuss best practices, share teaching strategies, and demonstrate technology for the classrooms. According to Steve Hurd, “The conference was hailed as a great success. Teachers from Mustard Seed School had travelled seven hours to reach Isaac Newton School and the two from Kasese Humanist Primary School had undertaken a five-hour journey by bus. It was the furthest distance most of the teachers had travelled from their home regions and, as such, the journey alone proved a great adventure. Meeting teachers from other schools led to new friendships being formed and the professional learning taking place was tangible.”
• The Mustard Seed School in Busota recently completed construction of a new dormitory for girls (previously, some girls had been staying in makeshift bunks in unfinished classrooms), a pumped water storage system, and new toilets, greatly improving the living conditions at the school.
• UHST is making big changes at the Mbute Campus of Isaac Newton High School. This school site had previously been home to two unsuccessful humanist schools, but UHST has a plan in place to create a sustainable program. Enrollment levels for this year are good, but the school faces many challenges. The first order of business has been rehabilitating the existing school buildings and adding essential infrastructure, including building new toilets and a kitchen and finding a way to get electricity to the school. UHST is currently fundraising for these building projects. If you’d like to support their efforts, click here.
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Kasese Humanist Primary School, our third-quarter 2012 education beneficiary, gave us this report about how they are using the funds contributed by members of Foundation Beyond Belief. Members donated $7,505 to KHPS last quarter.

On behalf of Kasese Humanist Primary School, I am grateful to have our school benefit from funds being raised by members of Foundation Beyond Belief. These funds are going to help us in strengthening service delivery of education to Ugandan children.

We intend to use this donation in the following ways:

• Purchasing furniture to put in our school library, where we shall make seats, tables, and bookshelves for our textbooks.

• Purchasing and installing a big rainwater harvesting tank to provide water at the school. This water shall be used by the students to clean up their bodies and to wash clothes, mop classrooms, and clean the toilets, to mention but a few uses. The water tank shall assist in cutting down on the current water bill of the metered piped tap water present at the school.

We want to thank Foundation Beyond Belief management, members, and freethinkers worldwide for having supported generously Kasese Humanist Primary School. It means a lot to us to see a community of atheists, humanists, and other freethinkers coming together to support our school project, and we at Kasese Humanist Primary School shall keep the members of Foundation Beyond Belief posted on all developments and updates as they unfold. Many thanks once again for the donation. Thank you.

“With science, we can progress.”

Yours in free thought,
Bwambale Robert, School Project Director
Kasese Humanist Primary School, Uganda

Third-quarter education beneficiary Uganda Humanist Schools Trust gave us this report about how they are using the funds contributed by members of Foundation Beyond Belief. Members donated $3,615 to UHST last quarter.

FBB Contribution to the Success of the Mustard Seed Humanist School Expansion Appeal

In May 2011, Uganda Humanist Schools Trust launched an appeal to enable a substantial expansion of the Mustard Seed Humanist School in Uganda. The school was stuck on a small plot of land with little room for expansion and with a desperate need for an additional four classrooms. The opportunity to purchase a failing Moslem primary school close to the site was taken and, after an appeal by UHST, with the help of the British Humanist Association, the Rationalist Association/New Humanist, and international humanist friends, we were able to secure the site for the school by the end of August 2011.  The purchase gives the school an additional two acres of land, five classrooms, staff offices, a kitchen, and latrines for boys and girls.

Once Mustard Seed takes full possession of the site in December, there will be some work to do on the buildings, including concreting floors, plastering and painting, and fitting windows and doors. It will also need attention to the kitchen and latrines, arranging water supply, and extending electricity to the new site, which is 80 to 100 meters away from the existing site. The $3,615 raised through the generosity of FBB supporters will make a substantial contribution to this essential work. There can be little doubt that this new acquisition has created space and facilities which will allow the future development of the school to proceed unhindered.

In the coming year we turn our attention to finding ways to improve the pay and conditions of teachers. The school can only afford to pay teachers as little as 50 cents a lesson, and this has an adverse impact on motivation and retention. We also want to move closer to our goal of providing one textbook per student in each subject, as well as providing more non-book learning resources, including materials for science, art, and music.

Click here to read a full report following our recent visit to the Mustard Seed School.  The school is very grateful for this additional support from Foundation Beyond Belief and hopes to have further good news to report in 2012.

Our current Education beneficiary, Uganda Humanist Schools Trust, is raising funds to purchase a new school building for students in drought-stricken Kamuli, Uganda. This is a perfect opportunity for humanist organizations to come together in support of secular education.

The Mustard Seed School is of one of three rural secondary schools in Uganda that are supported by the Uganda Humanist Schools Trust. The school exists as a result of the remarkable commitment of Moses Kamya, a local Humanist and trained teacher who began by tutoring a small group of students in a temporary building. In 2005 he wrote to Caspar Melville, editor of the New Humanist and CEO of the Rationalist Association, to ask for help to establish a Humanist school. Caspar mounted a successful appeal, and the money raised enabled Moses to construct the first classroom on a small plot of land at the edge of the village of Busota, near the regional market town of Kamuli.

This year the area around Kamuli has been hit by the East African drought. The cost of water in the area has risen eight-fold over the past year, and there are long lines as people wait to fill their water carriers. Yields of corn, the staple foodstuff, are at an all-time low, and income from cash crops is down. The consequence for the school is that families are struggling to pay even the very low fees charged by the school. Our ongoing assistance is thus vital.

Since our January launch, the Education category has consistently drawn the highest level of support from our members. Uganda Humanist Schools Trust continued this pattern in the third quarter, earning $3,395 in member support.

UHST Chief Executive Steve Hurd recently declared FBB support “invaluable” to the Trust’s Foundation Literacy Programme, which is dedicated to gradually providing individual copies of textbooks for all students. For the past two years the Programme has focused on acquiring textbooks for entering students and those in the Senior 4 class—the year students take their national examinations.

Foundation Beyond Belief’s contribution has caused the Literacy Programme to leap forward, fully funding a textbook in every subject for every student in Senior 2 (U.S. sophomore equivalent) of the Isaac Newton High School near Masaka, Uganda. Our contribution is also providing additional books for the Mustard Seed School in Busota.

“We believe that developing a reading culture is essential in order to empower students to assess information independently without relying solely on the pronouncements of authority figures,” said Hurd. “It is hoped that these new developments will encourage many more families to send their children to the Isaac Newton High School. We are very grateful for the generous donation from your subscribers.”

The clear member appeal of Uganda Humanist Schools makes this organization a strong contender for renewed support by Foundation Beyond Belief in 2011.

Learn more about Uganda Humanist Schools Trust

View July 2010 report on Isaac Newton School

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Steve Hurd is chairperson of Uganda Humanist Schools Trust, our current Education beneficiary. Our Q&A series continues as Steve answers questions submitted by our members. (Photo: Deo Ssekitooleko and Dan Senku of the Uganda Humanist Association with Steve Hurd)

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Q  I am intrigued by what I’ve read about Deo Ssekitooleko of Uganda Humanists. Can you tell me more about him and his work? — James W.

A  I first met Deo in 2006. He was Chairman of the Uganda Humanist Association (UHASSO) at the time and he invited me to lunch with the committee. He explained that he found out about Humanism in 2003 at Makerere University. His first action was to write to Paul Kurtz who sent him a large number of books, which became UHASSO’s Paul Kurtz library.

His next action was to invite IHEU to hold their international congress in Uganda, which they did in 2004. By that time his friend Peter Kisirinya (current Chair of UHASSO and of the Uganda Humanist Schools Association (UHSA) was starting to establish the first Humanist school in a rural location near Masaka. Thus the Isaac Newton High School became the first humanist school in Uganda – and it was entirely self financed. This was followed in 2005/6 by the Mustard Seed School opened in Kamuli by Moses Kamya, a university friend of Deo and Peter. Funding for this came from readers of the “New Humanist” magazine.

In February 2008 Deo used funds from IHEU and a UK charity, which was the forerunner of the Uganda Humanist Schools Trust to establish the Humanist Academy. Today the three schools are providing liberal-secular secondary education to over 400 students from impoverished rural homes, many of them single or double orphans from AIDS and other causes.

Deo is now the East African representative of IHEU. He is trying to foster the establishment of local Humanist groups throughout East Africa, while still very actively involved in the Humanist Academy. You can read reports on the Humanist Academy and the other Humanist Schools in Uganda on www.ugandahumanistschoolstrust.org.

Q  Has there been local religious opposition to the presence of Humanist schools? — Leigh-Ann F.

A  To talk of opposition would be overstating the case, but here are two anecdotes.

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