On our last day at Kajaho Primary School, we wanted to help them with some of their play spaces and with sports equipment. Matthew is an English teacher at Kajaho, and he sees how sports and just playing around can bring the students together. Kajaho students include both Ugandan nationals and refugees, so creating those opportunities to play and build relationships through sport is really important.
That’s why Matthew ran in the World Refugee Day 5k on June 20th – to make his idea of bringing sports equipment to Kajaho happen.
So, on Day 178, with the 5k behind him and his idea fully funded by generous supporters around the world, we got to work helping Matthew make his idea real.
We started with the play spaces. The netball court in particular. Netball is a popular sport in Uganda, particularly with women and girls. But Kajaho’s netball court was all out of whack. The baskets stood at very different heights, one basket way above regulation and far too high for these primary school students.
So we took down the posts, trimmed them down to the correct height and sunk them into new concrete. The girls could hardly wait for the concrete to set – “we can actually play netball now.” The school’s only netball had seen better days, so with a few new netballs the netball players were ready to go.
Volleyball is a sport that’s more popular with the boys at Kajaho, but that needed help, too. We came bearing a new volleyball net and new volleyballs (with tubes, so they can be repaired if need be). We’re also working on moving the volleyball posts closer together (and away from the nearby water cistern), so that the Kajaho court is regulation size.
Final touches – uniforms and other gear – are on order, the simple but important things the Kajaho kids need to get playing.
“This is great,” said Matthew. “Though they are different nationalities, if they can play together that will create a very good relationship.”
Special thanks to SweatShop Health Club, Clif Bar, Angela Schulz, Kate Havelin and Leo Timmons, David & Joanne Atwell, Beverly Fitzgerald, and David & Hertha Lange
