We’ve spent the last two days working with students to brighten up their classrooms, but today, we want to focus on some of the people really making this school happen — the teachers.
Rubondo Secondary School has seven teachers who teach everything – from fine arts, to agriculture, mathematics, English, geography, and more.
For the size of the school and the number of the subjects, the school would normally have about fourteen teachers, but for the time being, they were are only able to cover the salary for seven.
Many of the teachers live in Rubondo and decided to leave other jobs to come support the school.
“Many of the teachers were working at other schools, in other part of Nakivale or the host community,” said one of the head teachers. “But they left those positions to come here and accept a lower salary and to work harder because they want to see their communities thrive and the future prospects of their children change.”
We wanted to give back to these hardworking teachers who have given so much to make this school possible.
We brought some small things to make their shared work space feel more homey — a clock for the wall, curtains for the windows, small pieces of art work, markers and utensil crocks. But we also bought things that they would otherwise be reaching into the bottom of their pockets to buy to make sure they can do their work and succeed as instructors — chalk, pens, notebooks, blackboard erasers, textbooks for all the subjects, a table to sit while writing lesson plans and grading, and more.
They were ecstatic, and we left feeling sure that these new tools would help them do the best job that they could.
