WFP constructs houses, classrooms in food deal
I USED to reach my school late and my lessons would always start late. But after getting this house at the school, everything has changed for the better,†says Lawrence Azedi, a teacher at Ipa Primary School in Arua District. <br>This particular school has had 11 houses constructed.
By Joshua Kato
I USED to reach my school late and my lessons would always start late. But after getting this house at the school, everything has changed for the better,†says Lawrence Azedi, a teacher at Ipa Primary School in Arua District.
This particular school has had 11 houses constructed.
“For two years, I rented a grass-thatched house about 2km from here. I would pay sh7,000 as rent each month from my earnings of sh130,000,†he says.
The houses are constructed with burnt mud bricks and roofed with iron sheets. All of them have four rooms.
The World Food Programme (WFP) is to thank for all this. The organisation has helped construct houses for teachers under the Food for Education Programme.
The United Nations World Food Programme has been providing Food for Education assistance in Uganda for a number of years, with the broad objective of facilitating cognitive development to enhance future opportunities for poor children.
“Food for Education is implemented under both the protracted relief and recovery operation.
“Under this operation, the project targets pre-primary children, Universal Primary Education and secondary school students in conflict-ravaged and refugee-hosting areas,†says WFP Country Representative Ken Noah Davies.
“The food is used as an incentive to the community to provide labour for the construction of the buildings,†says WFP area coordinator Food for Assets Andrew Okello.
He says each of the houses constructed is worth about $500. WFP’s target is to have at least 200 houses for teachers in 79 schools in the area by 2006.
In Karamoja, it targets all children as an incentive. Around the year 2000, only 6.8% of school-going children had completed primary education.
“The specific objectives of the Food for Education are to increase enrolment and retention rates, improve the beneficiaries’ attention span and to reduce the number of school drop-outs, especially among girls,†Okello says.
The classrooms constructed in Arua include six at Lini Primary School in Terego Sub-county. Before WFP started on this work, pupils were studying in grass and wattle structures.
“It was terrible. Pupils did not have morale to come to the classrooms because they were very bad,†says Samuel Abima Doroa, a teacher at the school.
WFP spent at least 130 tonnes of food as an incentive to the community to construct the classrooms.
They also bought about 130 iron sheets that roofed it. The only thing lacking now are the benches for the pupils to sit on during lessons.
I USED to reach my school late and my lessons would always start late. But after getting this house at the school, everything has changed for the better,†says Lawrence Azedi, a teacher at Ipa Primary School in Arua District.
This particular school has had 11 houses constructed.
“For two years, I rented a grass-thatched house about 2km from here. I would pay sh7,000 as rent each month from my earnings of sh130,000,†he says.
The houses are constructed with burnt mud bricks and roofed with iron sheets. All of them have four rooms.
The World Food Programme (WFP) is to thank for all this. The organisation has helped construct houses for teachers under the Food for Education Programme.
The United Nations World Food Programme has been providing Food for Education assistance in Uganda for a number of years, with the broad objective of facilitating cognitive development to enhance future opportunities for poor children.
“Food for Education is implemented under both the protracted relief and recovery operation.
“Under this operation, the project targets pre-primary children, Universal Primary Education and secondary school students in conflict-ravaged and refugee-hosting areas,†says WFP Country Representative Ken Noah Davies.
“The food is used as an incentive to the community to provide labour for the construction of the buildings,†says WFP area coordinator Food for Assets Andrew Okello.
He says each of the houses constructed is worth about $500. WFP’s target is to have at least 200 houses for teachers in 79 schools in the area by 2006.
In Karamoja, it targets all children as an incentive. Around the year 2000, only 6.8% of school-going children had completed primary education.
“The specific objectives of the Food for Education are to increase enrolment and retention rates, improve the beneficiaries’ attention span and to reduce the number of school drop-outs, especially among girls,†Okello says.
The classrooms constructed in Arua include six at Lini Primary School in Terego Sub-county. Before WFP started on this work, pupils were studying in grass and wattle structures.
“It was terrible. Pupils did not have morale to come to the classrooms because they were very bad,†says Samuel Abima Doroa, a teacher at the school.
WFP spent at least 130 tonnes of food as an incentive to the community to construct the classrooms.
They also bought about 130 iron sheets that roofed it. The only thing lacking now are the benches for the pupils to sit on during lessons.