3rd Project, Sharita Primary School Uniform Delivery Ceremony

HUMAN IN LOVE has been carrying out education projects in deprived areas of Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda to help children and teenagers who are not able to continue their study due to financial difficulties. (※Since the Muyange Primary School project, school uniform delivery project of HUMAN IN LOVE Burundi branch has been temporarily stopped due to Burundi’s unstable security situation. Meanwhile, tuition fee support for middle and high school students is still on progress via schools.)

Schools of these three countries have one particular aspect which is different from Korean schools. It is that there are students of different ages in a class, since students come or stop coming to classes depending on their financial situation.

Even though there is no tuition fee for primary schools, lots of children cannot carry on their study, and one of the reasons for their academic interruption is lack of school uniforms. Usually, one uniform is handed down to many children, but children who fail to get a uniform cannot go to school. In addition, even for students who are attending schools, many of them wore tattered or ill-fitting uniforms or mended clothes with similar color to the school uniform.

To help these students, Youth Dream Team Korea and Sangsang Fund Donation Market held a fund-raising campaign through Happybean, an online donation portal operated by Naver, HUMAN IN LOVE website and Sangsang fund donation market for four months starting from Jul. 2 to Oct. 31, 2015. A total of 8,468,964 KRW (around 7,342 USD) (Youth Dream Team Korea: 4,174,864 KRW (around 3,619 USD), Sangsang Fund Donation Market: 4,294,100 KRW (around 3,723 USD)) was collected.

HUMAN IN LOVE has gone through two months of preparation period from Nov. 2015 to Jan. 2016, meeting with government officials, visiting schools, going over beneficiaries and making school uniforms, and we decided to support 934 students of two schools.

Finally, on Feb. 4, 2016, we delivered new school uniforms to 241 students of Sharita Primary School in Rwanda. Now, I would like to cover the story of the school uniform delivery project of Sharita Primary School.

In the morning of Feb. 4, HUMAN IN LOVE staff headed to Rweru Sector for the uniform delivery ceremony of Sharita Primary School. Back then, I talked with other staff that it is familiar to go to an island because we already had an experience of visiting Mazane Island one month before. However, we were so wrong.

Heading to the pier where we can take a boat to Sharita Island was the beginning of our hardship. We drived on a long and winding road until we were told that we have to carry all the uniforms and walk from a certain point since the car cannot go in. It was terrible. We were able to go to the pier by car on our first visit, but due to the rain that poured the day before, our car could not move from a certain point because of the muddy road. Carrying all the uniforms, we had to sweat a lot even before reaching the pier.

We were quite relieved after getting on the boat, but soon, we realized that the wooden boat was very old and the lake water kept leaking inside the boat. Therefore, we had to sweat again, bailing water out of the boat for one and a half hour on the way to Sharita Island.

Sharita Island is located in a blind area of Rweru Sector where the provincial government cannot afford to give care to. There are no water and electricity facilities, and residents of Sharita Island use the lake water as their drinking water. However, the quality of the lake water is very poor since wastewater from inland Rwanda flows in.

Unfortunately, the first scene that we faced as soon as we arrived at the island was a collapsed classroom of Sharita Primary School. There is still no plan by the government to mend the collapsed classrooms, so children of six grades have to be divided into morning and afternoon classes and share three classrooms.

Lower grade students yelled and greeted us as the bicycles carrying the uniforms arrived at the school. To fulfill the expectations of the students, we quickly and eagerly hanged the banner and started the delivery although we were exhausted due to the sweltering heat.

Students of each school show different characteristics, but we did not expect that the children of Sharita Island would be so happy and enthusiastic. Of course, students of Mazane Island were also very bright and lovely, but there were many students of unique personality in Sharita Island. So, mothers of the children had to control the students with a long cane but it was not enough to make them calm.

In particular, the English teacher of Sharita Primary School who helped us with interpretation said that the delivery of the school uniform is a miracle. He called this ceremony a miracle since Sharita Island has little opportunity to enjoy support. Even if some NGOs come to the island for support, they group the children by poverty level according to their own rule, so some students who did not fit the criteria were not able to receive help. The English teacher said that he is thankful to HUMAN IN LOVE for providing uniforms to all students without discrimination.

On the way back to inland Rwanda, we were worn out since we did not eat a single meal and had to hold the ceremony under the scorching heat. However, we were more than happy to deliver happiness and joy to the children. Of course, simply providing school uniforms itself will not change the overall quality of life of the students, but I believe our constant interest towards the students will eventually change the lives of them.