Uniforms

Today, I went to TAOST to work on follow-up accountability with a recent proposal. The proposal was working towards giving the children at this school uniforms. Uniforms are an important part of the Ugandan school system - many schools require the students wear a uniform, including the government schools. The students that attend this school are not able to afford uniforms or many other clothes, and so having the uniforms now is a huge gift and encouragement to them. These uniforms reinforce the importance of education and that they should take pride in their school.

The day I visited the school I was going to check on the names of the children receiving uniforms and take pictures of the children. I had no idea how much fun I would have doing this. Immediately when I arrived, the girls gathered around me, posing for my camera and showing off their uniforms. After about fifteen minutes of this, the teachers organized it so I would visit each class and take a few pictures. The children were so sweet and giving me warm greetings as I walked in to the class room. The kindergarten and first grade classes I will never forget though - each time my camera flash would go off the children would literally scream with laughter. They had such an expressive response, that I began to laugh also, which caused them to laugh even more. Soon the children were bouncing off the wall and I was laughing too hard to actually take quality pictures. During this madness, I'm pretty sure that I grabbed the nearest teacher and exclaimed, "I love my job!"

Also...You will notice that not all of the children are wearing uniforms and this is why -
1. They are new to the school and they will be covered in round two
2. They forgot - this is especially true of the little ones
3. They have a solid taost t-shirt - this means the kid was the head of their class and they got a special t-shirt for this. There were two kids in every class that received a t-shirt like this.
4. I had a hard time getting all of the kids in the school pics.

Enjoy!
Lori, Fount of Mercy's International Development Director

TAOST Library

Written by Lori, Fount of Mercy International Development Director

Last Tuesday I visited TAOST JR, Academy. Over the past few months, this school has worked very hard to create a proposal to develop a library for their school. Most recently they put together a space for their library.

This includes converting two small rooms into one larger room and getting shelves, tables, and chairs. The nest step for this project will be buying the books.
The TAOST Organization leaders say that they want this library so they can encourage their students to have a culture of reading. The headmaster of this school, Francis, is so excited about the library, he is already planning how the teachers can make use of it and creating reading challenges for the children.