Featuring Albert Valley High School
Continuing our feature schools series, this month we are focusing on Albert Valley High School located in the town of Karugutu in Fort Portal/Albert Valley area of Western Uganda, nor far from the border with the DRC. The school was started in 2009 by the Rwenzori Community Development Trust, a Ugandan charity which owns the land. The enrollment was around 200 students from extremely poor families and some who had been displaced by wars in the Congo. At that time the equivalent of Grade 8 through 11 were offered.
In 2013, when the school approached Classrooms for Africa for help, the campus consisted of a small, unfinished brick building used as an office as well four temporary wooden-slat mud-floor “classrooms”. A donor in the UK had given the school some science equipment but there was no secure building in which to house it.
Over the past five years, Classrooms for Africa has been involved in raising funds for a series of projects at Albert Valley High School, which has resulted in 10 classrooms, separate boys’ and a girls’ dormitory accommodation, latrine facilities, a kitchen and a rain-water harvesting system.
Enrolment has risen to over 350 students. Two of the classrooms have been adapted as science laboratories and the hope is that eventually a separate science block will be added. The local education authorities have granted examination status to the school so that state examinations can be written at the school. Albert Valley students have performed very well in the examinations and the school now ranks number one in the district. The students have also developed a strong soccer team which has done very well at the regional level.
Recent graduates from Grade 11 (S4) have gone on to training as pastors, teachers, nurses and lab technicians to name a few areas of service. This past year the school has added S5 and S6 (A-level) classes ie. Grades 12 and 13, which will enable graduates to go directly to university. The young people of this area would not have been able to make these advancements without the involvement of Classrooms for Africa. Funds for these projects have been supplied by two faithful donors from Western Canada and by the “Chiropractors with Compassion” which funded the boys’ dormitory.
Thank you donors for your faithful support in making such an huge impact on the community at Karagutu!
The project and school director write on August 30, 2019:
“We are so grateful for the invaluable developments that Classrooms for Africa has made at Albert Valley High school Karugutu. Without your support, this school would not have got a firm foundation and the vulnerable young whose future has been shaped by this school, would not have got such an opportunity of having a bright future. The testimonies of their success is (are) an indication that Classrooms for Africa has surely made a great positive impart in the lives of the communities in Ntoroko district and beyond, because of supporting Albert Valley High school.” Kasiringi Eryeza, Director, Albert Valley High School-Karugutu.test