Namasagali old students to fundraise for college revamp

Apr 23, 2018

Namasagali is not dead. It is not even on life support. Yes, some of her vital organs will require transplants, but there’s hope.

State minister Moses Kizige interacts with old students

EDUCATION


It was once a top grade school in Uganda but after years of neglect, Namasagali College is now a ghost institution.

To recover its lost glory, old students have resolved to do a massive fundraising to revamp it.

Location

Turning off the highway, barely three kilometres to Kamuli town, is a dirt road with a huge sign proclaiming: Namasagali College. That sign - or variants of it - has been at the spot for decades. Back in the day, it evoked a myriad emotions in a variety of people - envy for those who had no links to the famous school; pride in those associated with it and dread for some who abhorred its strict ways. Now, it sits there like one selling an unfamiliar commodity; but sitting boldly, nonetheless.

About 23km of driving on an ever-narrowing road, through villages that have grown significantly over the years and a gigantic swamp whose trees have all been gnawed away by human "development", you find another signpost. It is old - actually ancient - because even students who were at the school in the eighties left it there. It cautions: Go Slow: Bend Ahead. And indeed, after it, you round a very sharp bend, and immediately face another signpost that has weathered the storms of existence for decades, announcing, "Welcome to Namasagali".

After that, you can now take in what the end of the road offers - a town that has defied half a century of close to no change of any sort and, on its fringes, right by the continent's longest river, the Nile, is the notable Namasagali College itself. This is where the alumni of the school, numbering about 300, flocked on the weekend that preceded Easter 2018, to celebrate the school's belated Golden Jubilee and also chart a plan to revamp the school that was a power to reckon with back in the day.

It is an insult to both old and young, to go through what Namasagali College was, let alone what it is today. But just so nobody is left out, the college, founded by the Busoga local administration, was the school everybody wanted their child to go to, if what they wanted was a sound education catering for all domains of growth and development - the cognitive, psychomotor and affective. It gathered children from far and wide, including from beyond Uganda's borders.

Ownership

In the late 60s, the Busoga administration invited the Mill Hill Fathers to run the school. The missionaries sent over a young luminary, the Rev. Fr Damian Grimes, who had been a teacher at Namilyango College, to head the school. Grimes, over the years, turned the school into an institution that had no equal in the region. Yet after he left, it turned into something deplorable; a state the alumni swear they won't tolerate any longer. It is partly to fulfil this that many descended on the overgrown, dilapidated site for two days.

The reunion


The scene at the reunion would fail even a wordsmith to find the right words to describe it. Euphoria does not even come close. Endless hugs; random ululations and raucous laughter; a near-overnight dance on Friday; selfies in small and big groups, in all the favourite places that evoked memories both divine and not-too-divine; eating and drinking and all manner of merrymaking.

But it was also a scene of shock, as old students saw the decay that has eaten up the school. Even in the eighties, Namasagali was never one to boast of glamorous structures, the school having inherited buildings that had been abandoned by the East African Railways and Harbours; but if the place had been old back in the day, now it was decrepit. Some invisible monster seems to have mauled away whole buildings; eaten away trees and planted weeds (bushes, really) all over the place. The disrepair was heartrending. Some shed tears.

This, however, was the reason the event had been taken to the school campus, because though the old students had been holding reunions for years, none had taken place at Namasagali. Instead, they had been happening in Kampala, London, Boston, Washington and elsewhere. This time, they took the 50th anniversary celebrations to the school campus, so members could get a first-hand impression of what needs to be done.

NOSA members compete with students in a  Kisoga dance


Resolutions

And what needs to be done? Build new structures, repair the swimming pool, build a new library and stock it. Bring all stakeholders together to manage the school. Start money-making ventures to sustain Namasagali. Resume giving the students a wide array of co-curricular activities. Basically, give the old, current, and future students something to be proud of.

A steering committee was put in place to spearhead this drive, guided by a strategic plan that had been drawn prior to the event. The steering committee is headed by Prof. Allan Katwalo, who was elected unanimously, after leading a group that drafted the strategic plan. The team will use two years to put structures in place, and also lead the alumni in doing some basic repairs.

Father Grimes

Probably one of the biggest highlights of the reunion event was the Skype conference with the man everybody swears by, the venerable Fr. D. Grimes. Now too old to be allowed out of the house where he lives in Liverpool, Fr Grimes chatted with the gathering for about half an hour on a shaky call whose sound kept going off and on.

The furore that greeted the appearance of his face on the screen was enough to tell him that if there had been any bad blood between him and some students when he was headteacher, it had been washed away by time.

Some shed nostalgic tears; some cheered endlessly, from when he led the school in singing the school anthem, to when he blessed them, the way he did at the assembly every weekday morning years ago. Grimes himself refused to be stopped from talking, going on and on, reeling off joke after joke, clearly revelling in the reunion, albeit a virtual one.

Striving regardless

Namasagali is not dead. It is not even on life support. Yes, some of her vital organs will require transplants, but there's hope.

The current administration has done a lot to resuscitate the school, with more students enrolled and new structures built. The headteacher, Daniel Bazira, is doing a lot to keep the school going. However, what more needs to be done is mind-boggling, but the resolve and enthusiasm are sky-high.

Watching those men and women in varying degrees of age, one got one impression: Nothing they set their hands on will fail. Of course, time alone will tell, but clearly, Namasagali College can live again.

Namasagali College will "Strive Regardless" as its moto affirms.

 

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});