News

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At the Zoom club meeting on March 17th the speakers were Dr. Karen Rogers (nee Sennett) and her husband Mark. For the last twenty years, they have been trustees of KIRIMA, UK charity, supporting education in southwest Uganda, a poor area with subsistence farming, in a green hilly area with many farms growing tea plants. They have built and are sustaining two primary and a secondary boarding school, which offers ‘O’ and ‘A’ level courses, which are producing good examination results. One photograph showed a young man, a former pupil, who has returned and is now the headmaster of one of the primary schools. Sidcup Rotary’s donation in 2019 was used to support the newest of the primary schools: Nyakabungo.

Most of the parents are dirt poor so the scheme offers a way out from a very restricted life. The scheme gives bursaries to some of the children without which they would not be able to attend. The money raised goes to paying the teachers, (each earn just £100 a month: headteachers £150), to maintaining and repairing the buildings and playing fields and to providing money for books and teaching materials. These are purchased locally as transport from the U.K. is uneconomic. To cover the costs Karen sends £10,000 from the charity each month for the three schools. 

Karen and Mark have flown out to Uganda several times to check that the money is being used as they intended and to see on the spot what more may need to be done. Mark takes out computers and teaches the children and teachers how to use them. Karen uses the time to teach first aid to secondary school pupils. You can see slides from her presentation by clicking on the link below.

Photograph shows some of the children at Nyakabungo Primary in front of the new school hall which was build last year

You can donate to support Nyakobungo Primary School:

£15 pays for 1 child to attend 1 month

£180 pays for 1 child to attend 1 year

£30+ would provide more much needed books

£50+ supports the hardship fund for children who are double orphans

How to donate:

Bank transfer: Account name “volunteeruganda”

Account number: 00028384

Sort code: 40/52/40

Credit card on line at website : www.teachuganda.org

Cheque paid to “ volunteeruganda”, posted to Dr Karen Sennett
23 Langbourne avenue London N6 6AJ

  A few days before the appalling explosion in Beirut we had a presentation from a member of MapAction who explained to us the important role they have in facilitating the response of aid agencies. We have learnt that they had been called upon to send a team to Beirut and in view of its urgent nature our club made a donation of £1,000 as a contribution towards the £2,751 airfare costs.

Humanitarian emergencies often strike without warning, destroying lives and livelihoods within a matter of seconds. In the immediate aftermath, the challenge for those responding is to know where to start.

Information is vital. Which area has been worst affected? Where are the most vulnerable people? What has happened to roads, railways and communication networks? Where are medical supplies and where are they needed most?

MapAction works across the globe to ensure disaster response teams have
access to the maps and data they need whenever they’re needed to answer these and other critical questions. As well as helping to prepare for emergencies before they happen, their team of expert volunteers is ready to respond to disasters in-country or remotely, anywhere in the world and at very short notice, to provide life-saving maps and data to help deliver the right aid to the right places, quickly.

Since 2003, MapAction has been applying expertise in geographical information and data to make humanitarian disaster response as effective as possible, saving many thousands of lives in the process.

https://mapaction.org/

Sidcup Rotary Club’s Benevolent Trust jointly funded the new defibrillator installed inside the Waitrose Sidcup store on 1 July 2020 as part of a project installing defibrillators in Sidcup in partnership with Sidcup Business Partners.  Two others are being jointly funded. These are due to be installed at the Premier Lodge Day Nursery at 11 Station Road, Sidcup and at it near The Hackney Carriage Micro pub at 165 Station Road, Sidcup. The nursery will pay for its installation and electricity charges.