MYNYDD
BACH PRIMARY SCHOOL IN LIRA, UGANDA
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A Report from Charles Owens - Project Co-ordinator
Many of you who have been kind enough to support us
in building a new school for L.O.S.T. (Lango Orphans Scholarship Trust)
in Lira will, I am sure, be wondering how it is going.
I am pleased to be able to report that it is going very well.
You
have all been so generous and encouraging in the gifts you have sent to us.
It is through this wonderful response to our appeal that our team in Lira
has been able to make a start on site.
A further donation from a local construction firm
has enabled us to purchase the remainder of the land, bringing the school site
area well within the government’s requirements for a residential primary
school. Our
Father is so good. He
provides all and even gives us more than we ask for.
We decided to build the main school block in its
entirety and to use only four of the classrooms as classrooms and the remainder
as temporary dormitories, kitchen, dining room and assembly room. This
will allow us to take on our first hundred children on completion of the main
block
Work
on the site clearance was completed last month.
The playing fields and the main building area were levelled and the
excavations and strip foundations start this week.
(Report received 24th June 2003)
We
have secured a clay deposit not too far from the site and I am assured that it
has more than enough good quality clay for our brick making operation.
The brick-making machine purchased in the UK arrived safely in Lira
despite the mountain of paperwork.
The machine is now in daily use employing four boys and one skilled man
producing eight hundred bricks per day.
We will have the first kiln firing next week and take delivery for the
foundations mid July.
I am frequently asked the same question – how can
we build a school in Uganda that is many thousands of miles away.
My answer is always the same – we don’t.
It is not us that are
building this school, but the
team from Lira under the supervision of an engineer and the control of
the Rev Johnson and his wife Vicky.
For my part I have produced the drawings for the
Lira local authority and the provisional government requirements, along with all
working drawings.
We have a team here in Wales that meet on a regular basis to promote the
funding, the existing arrangements within L.O.S.T. and take care of all
the finances.
There
is an on-site labour force of around thirty.
We provide each worker with a main meal and pay the going rate for this
area every day. This
allows them to purchase food for their families on their way home each night.
Our policy is to employ unskilled boys that can be
trained with construction skills.
Likewise when we have a good stock of bricks on site, the machine can be
used to generate income.
We
have a very good e-mail connection with the site and can have instant
communications to solve any problems that can and do occur.
So far all has gone well.
The building programme is dictated by the gifts that we receive so please
do remember us in your prayers.
This school is desperately needed in Lira and the local work force
desperately needs the work that the site is able to supply.
I will be in the village display area for most of
this years’ Flames of Fire conference at Builth and would
welcome the opportunity to bring you up to date with the latest news.
Many thanks again for all your support.
May God bless you all.
(Editor’s note:
A previous report of the work of L.O.S.T. appears in Issue number
22 ARM(Wales) and Flames of Fire are happy to support
this work.)