A Note from Alex & Millie about Donela Schools

Our Dear Friends and Partners,

Please receive our warm and heartfelt greetings! We are eternally grateful to God for sustaining you through the very trying COVID seasons that we have all had to endure over the past two years. He remains faithful through every season.  

It is with much regret that we will not be able to join you physically for this year’s fundraising gala. Due to the backlog of US visa applicants that accumulated during the two years of COVID lockdown, we have failed to secure a visa interview appointment in time. Regardless of this, our hearts will be fully with you during the gala as we together identify with God’s causes for our Bombo community here in Uganda.  

Our biggest area of need currently is our Donela Schools. It is well said by the late Nelson Mandela that “Education is the most powerful weapon that you can use to change the world.” Donela Kakooge, one of the campuses, reaches the largest number of our most vulnerable children and yet it is also the neediest. Their needs include additional classrooms, more land, and classrooms equipment. 

• Additional classrooms will create ample learning space with a conducive environment. Currently some grades are sharing the same classroom space separated by curtains which makes it very hard for the learners and teachers. Having more classrooms would also allow for increased enrollment with enough space to accommodate fresh entrants.

• More land allows for expansion into boarding facilities and teachers accommodations (which solves the biting problem of teacher turn over), causes the teachers to be fully available to the children, and attracts quality teachers. More land also opens a door to a boarding facility that will draw enrollment from areas too far away to access the school on a daily basis. Playground space is a plus.

• Classroom equipment (for all campuses) will be a great relief in not having to struggle for desks, tables, lockers, and chairs. Two students using a desk meant for one will be eradicated. The growing number of students interested in joining will find adequate facilities of good quality. Parents are looking for good quality schools and this will place us ahead of the game.  

Achieving these goals means that we are being equipped to do what God has called us here to do (i.e. give children a chance to attain a quality yet affordable life-changing education in an environment where they receive love, hope, and care that is not assured in many of our vulnerable and at-risk communities.) Not only will we have enabled quality learning conditions – we will also have helped them attain an education that will give them a better opportunity to a better life.

Thank you for partnering with us. We will miss the opportunity of joining you in this wonderful fundraising gala. We love you. We pray for you.

Love,

Alex and Millie Ojera

To learn more about Align's Gala of Hope on October 8, 2022 or to purchase tickets, click HERE.  
 
Tickets available for purchase through September 22, 2022.