Mbura School started as a dream

Oct 14, 2001

Mrs Enid Kanyangyeyo left a good job in Canada to start a unique school in Mbarara

Mbura International School in Mbarara is a name derived from a tall Savannah grass, emburara, that dominated the hills in this south-western district of Ankole. The school, like the mburara grass, has come to dominate the education standards in the district. “Together we cross the barriers” is the school motto, the principal, Mrs Enid Kanyangyeyo says. School start at 6:45 am when the children get up and clean the premises. At 7:00 am, the pupils go for a 30-minute breakfast. Unlike other schools in the district, lessons at Mbura end at 3:00-3:40 pm when they break off for games and day students go home. At 7:30 pm, it is reading time till 8:30 pm when the children go to bed. During lessons, the pupils sit informally. It can be in the classroom, under a tree or out in the sun because each child has got a portable desk and table. Kanyangyeyo says the type of education makes learning more interesting and relaxing. “We are moving all the time, in that way the kids feel free and it is such an environment that makes them relaxed and able to learn,” Kanyangyeyo says. Not all the time is school time, children have small gardens around the school where some of the food they eat comes from, they clean their dormitories, wash utensils, clean the vast compound, do painting, carpentry and other artworks as a way of making them self-reliant. Kanyangyeyo got the idea of this type of education a long time ago. This was during the fuel crisis in Amin’s regime. Her two children would walk from Kololo to Nakasero Primary school. “It was during that fuel shortage period that I started a school at my home in Kololo to save the children from walking all that distance. I had also dreamt of starting a school where kids would learn in a relaxed atmosphere,” she discloses. She moved the school from her home to the All Saints Church, Nakasero compound until the 1981 war. “My home in Kampala was raided in February 1981 and we had to run away to our home in Kinoni, Nyabushozi and thereafter to Kenya,” she recalls. “It was a hard life for me to get a job in Kenya, first because most Ugandans had flooded the country for political asylum and were involved in doing all sorts of jobs to survive,” she recalls. After two years, Kanyangyeyo got a job in Lesotho, South Africa at an English medium school for expatriates. Her children also joined the school. Lesotho was still not safe for Kanyangyeyo and her family because of the raids by South African Police in search of African National Congress (ANC) supporters. “All along I prayed to God to have my kids grow up in a safe environment. I applied for asylum and we went to Canada as refugees on August 5, 1985,” she says. Kanyagyeyo had obtained a degree in education in 1962 at the University of Bristol, England. In September 1985, Kanyangyeyo enrolled at the University of Western Ontario where she pursued a degree in English Literature . While in Canada, she got a part-time teaching job under the Ministry of Citizenship. She would teach the new immigrants in the morning and go to school in the evening. She graduated in June 1990 with a B.A Literature. She also obtained a certificate in teaching English as the second language. “I liked working with the new immigrants because we had a lot in common. Most of the refugees were women so when I graduated I was interested in helping them,” Kyenyangyeyo recalls. Kanyangyeyo‘s parents used to travel a lot spreading the gospel of God, so she would take care of her younger siblings. The culture of looking after children did not stop here. It was carried on up to now, making some people blame her ‘for spoiling children.’ Her philosophy is that “a kid needs to be spoilt once in a while. Kanyangyeyo says right now she is not getting any salary from Mbura School despite putting in many hours running of the school. “I came with enough clothes from Canada. I eat with the children, the school pays for my accommodation. what else do I want?” she says with an air of satisfaction. Kanyangyeyo is aware that she cannot put everybody in school but “I will try as much as possible,” she says. She resigned from her well paying job in Canada in 1999 to begin this venture. In fact her colleagues in Canada wondered what had possessed her. “Why do you want to go back to Africa, you want to be killed?” she recalls her colleagues saying. “Others said I was crazy, some said I was brave,” she adds. A week before her return to Uganda in December 1999 her mother, Geraldine died. “I take this as a real call from God. Sometimes I sit down and ask myself, did I make a mistake?” she says of her decision. She started Mbura International School with five pupils, one boy and four girls on September 18, last year. The population of the school now stands at 18 with pupils in Primary one, two, three and nursery. Kanyangyeyo designed all the furniture at the school and gave the designs to a carpenter. she even designed the velvet bed covers on her pupils’ beds herself with materials provided by a friend who runs a textile business in Kampala. “I am the brain behind this whole thing, the curriculum, everything,” she says proudly. However, she also attributes her success to friends and her teachers. A friend donated a prime seven acre-land near Mbarara University of Science and technology across River Rwizi for the new school campus. She intends through local friends and colleagues in Canada to begin building her dream school soon. Enid believes she is what she is now because her parents educated her, a gift she intends to pass on to every one before God signs her death warrant.

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