Local parish helps transform lives in Uganda though education and partnership

Ten dollars a month is all it takes to send a child in Buyaga, eastern Uganda, to school. A modest partnership between Resurrection Parish in King’s Park and Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Parish in Buyaga is making this happen for 285 children.

Under the umbrella of humanitarian organisation Melbourne Overseas Mission (MOM), this collaboration provides education, shelter and food at a secondary school named Resurrection, in honour of the Australians who funded it. There, the students dream of becoming doctors, engineers and hairdressers—a world away from the small-hold farms where they grow coffee, banana, cassava and beans.

The parish priest at Resurrection parish, Fr Gerard Keith, says there is nothing holding the students back from achieving their ambitions apart from opportunity. His admiration for Ugandan children and their potential is boundless.

‘They learn in their second, third or fourth language in classes of 70 kids,’ he says. ‘If it was Australia, they’d be absolutely bouncing off the walls... but all these kids were sitting in the class, engaged and attentive.’

He recalls a girl who welcomed him during a visit several years ago with a speech so powerful he called her ‘another Nelson Mandela. Given the opportunity, that girl could be a very good politician and a good leader.’

Fr Gerard was inspired by the work of St Bernard’s Parish in Geelong, who have a longstanding partnership with the community in Mannya, a village in southern Uganda. The priest who originally established the partnership with the Australians, Fr Nestus Mugisha, is now parish priest in Buyaga. Fr Gerard and Fr Nestus began a similar scheme there in 2019, which they call the Ubuntu Partnership.

Ten dollars a month will give one child one month’s worth of education, shelter and food.

And the search is on for a major sponsor. ‘That’s what helped Mannya become so successful—corporations got involved, like Cotton On,’ Fr Gerard says. ‘Their involvement has helped with really big dollars for proper water tanks, proper hospitals. So we’re hoping that maybe we can get that kind of connection.’

Fr Gerard and several other people from the parish, including parish manager Melanie Apap, are heading to Buyaga soon to take equipment for the school, and to see first-hand some of the work Fr Nestus is doing.

‘We’ve been very fortunate and already have some very generous donors who have helped build the school,’ Melanie says. ‘We sponsor 285 children, and $10 a month will give one child one month’s worth of education, shelter and food.’

The group will also deliver sewing machines to teach girls how to make their own underwear for when they menstruate, so they don’t have to miss school once a month. ‘We’ve got a template, we’ve got material, we’ve got needles, thread, and we’re going teach them how to sew,’ Melanie says. ‘So hopefully that’s a skill that they’ll be able to take with them and hopefully keep with them for life and, and remember us for doing that.’

Melanie says that a major goal of the partnership is to encourage the children to stay at school. ‘Sometimes they can just veer off and not stay focused in school, and go work in the fields, just to survive,’ she says.

‘One of our main focuses is to speak to the families and evangelise how important it is for the children to stay at school.’

Both Resurrection Parish and the parish primary school are in frequent contact with the students, who send letters with exquisite penmanship explaining their family situation. Fr Gerard reads aloud one child’s letter: I grew up with my grandmother. We are very many children at home, but my grandma is suffering from diabetes. She doesn’t have enough money for getting food, clothes, shoes.

Fr Gerard explains that many of the students come from one-parent families, often because the father has abandoned them. Other children are raised by a grandparent as both parents have died. The impacts of poverty in the region are compounded by mosquito-borne illnesses and HIV-AIDS. (Uganda has one of the highest HIV rates in the world, with a prevalence of more than 5 per cent.)

Likening the process to building a cathedral one brick at a time, Fr Gerard says they are making incremental progress. We are just a little cog in that big wheel, but if we can help break that poverty cycle ... these kids, by getting a little bit of education, are on the way out of that poverty.’

He sees the project as a journey of hope, both in Buyaga and in its impact in his own parish. ‘It creates partnership with ourselves, the parish and the school,’ he says. ‘The new principal actively wants to be involved in this, so the children are getting some insight into the partnership.’

Fr Gerard says one way they support the project is through social events that bring together the many cultural groups who are part of the King’s Park parish, describing them not only as fundraising but ‘friend-raising’ events.

‘I think people are more motivated when there’s a good cause,’ he says. ‘But also it’s the interaction, both in preparation and in the participation, that builds community and belonging, and [provides] that sense of purpose as well.’

Fr Gerard says he wants to get a message to both young people and adults that even in a chaotic world, doing just a little bit can make a difference. ‘So that they can see we do have actually some agency in creating a better, socially just world.’