project Kibutika

Kampala Uganda

Teaching Congolese Refugee Children who have no access to school

About kibutika.org

My name is Monique Petiot. A French national, I have been a resident in Malta for 11 years enjoying the island.

In 2017, I retired as IT consultant with the idea to volunteer for a good cause. After making a TEFL certificate and teaching English for 4 months by NGOs, first in Cambodia (2017), then in Nicaragua (2018), I went to Kampala (Uganda) in January 2019 to teach English to Congolese refugee children.

Through this web site I would like to share my experiences and inspire others to do volunteer work or sponsoring.

Our Mission

Teaching Congolese Refugee Children who have no access to school

About Kibutika

With over 1.3 Million refugees Uganda is the 3rd biggest host country for refugees worldwide, mainly from the ethnic war stricken neighbouring countries Congo, Sudan and Rwanda. While the country is benevolent with granting them access, its high poverty levels leave no room to provide the refugees with any kind of support. As a result their struggle to survive essentially depends on the solidarity within their community. In this environment the children are the main victims

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ALL ABOUT THE PROJECT

PROJECT SETUP

The project “KIBUTIKA” is registered by SOS Malta

Corruption in Uganda runs high and it does not spare the abundant NGO sphere. The registration of the “Kibutika Project” by a Maltese NGO, experienced in international projects such as SOS Malta has been instrumental to its setup. Beside transparency, accountability and yearly audit, fundraising on a dedicated account controlled by SOS Malta ensures that all funds are rightly allocated.

Objectives

What started as a simple volunteer assignment of 4 months has now become a long term project with following objectives:

Teaching writing, reading and counting to the children who don’t have access to primary school. Beside the financial reasons, many of the teenagers in this group (15 out of 37 children since September) have had no schooling at all or so little that they are too far behind to catch up with the standard curriculum of local schools.
Sponsoring students with sufficient educational background for local schools/vocational training/university (currently 3 students).

100% of the funds are spent directly to the benefit of the children with no overhead or personal costs.

A child at the Learning Centre can be sponsored with 19 € per month.

Sponsorship for a child at primary/secondary school: 46 € per month.

This cost may appear very high to anyone who is used to the performant public education systems that Europeans enjoy. It is prohibitive for refugees.

The reason is that public education in Uganda is widely neglected and ignored in the present political environment and entirely left to the private sector. Government schools are few and apart and there are none in Kibutika or even in the wider Ndege District of Kampala. Private schools obviously benefit from the situation.

SEPTEMBER –DECEMBER 2019: IMPLEMENTATION PHASE

The first priority has been to find and organize adequate premises for teaching and this phase is complete in respect of any critical needs:

Rental of a family house and set up of 2 classrooms (with 3 level of teaching). 2 other rooms are available but remain unused currently due to the lack of staff.
School furniture (tables, chairs and whiteboards) have been purchased
Installation of a water tank to collect rain water (cost saving measure and solution to the recurrent water shortages)
Hiring of a security guard (providing housing and income to a refugee family at the same time)
Hiring of a teacher assistant to supervise the 2 groups of younger learners during the class of the teenagers as emergency solution

JANUARY 2020 and ONWARDS: CONSOLIDATION PHASE

The school year for Primary and Secondary education in Uganda starts in February, however the Learning Centre will start on January 6th: the children can need this extra month to say the least and having no entertainment of any kind in their living environment, they welcome it.

Priorities:

Hiring minimum 1, possibly 2 teachers, likewise and preferably finding volunteer teachers is becoming critical to ensure adequate teaching and an improved coverage of the children’s needs.
As soon as it will be possible, provide breakfast to the children as they are mostly underfed (one meal a day in the afternoon if any) and their level of attention decreases rapidly towards midday. And it happens that when they suffer from hunger cramps they miss school.

Dorica

The Learning Centre

With 10 euro we can provide breakfast for one child for one month

The Budget

September 2019 – September 2020

and how you can help us!

Donations are gratefully received on following bank account:

Account Name SOS Malta – Kibutika UgandaBank

APS Bank Ltd, Malta :Account number 100-20001742819

Account currency EUR

IBAN MT35APSB77024004278620001742819

BIC/SWIFT code APSBMTMT

Bank address 17/18 Republic Street, Valletta, Malta

Account holder SOS Malta

Account holder’s address 10, Triq Il-Ward, Santa Venera, Malta

Donation certificates for tax purpose are of course available. Following information is needed to issue the receipts:

Full name
Address likewise email address
Please send request to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Where we are

Keep in Touch

I would like to invite you to follow Kibutika project on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Kibutikaproject/

I would be happy to receive a photo of all donors to add to the donors’ poster which is going to be displayed at the school so that the children, moreover the Congolese community at large, is aware that their learning is made possible thanks to the support of generous people.

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