TESS

Margaret Stevens has been involved in Teso since 1990, raising money, taking teams to work there and running training workshops for clergy and lay people. In March 2004, she heard about an exceptionally bright orphaned boy living in a camp, Okorio Joseph, who had a place at Ngora High School but was unable to take it up because of having no-one to pay his fees. Margaret had previously linked Long Field High School in Melton Mowbray with Ngora High School, so asked them to sponsor him. When she visited his home and grandmother, she found that there were two sisters who had also done well in their Primary Leaving Exams (PLE). The grandmother had saved enough money (just £5), and hidden it in the grass thatched roof of their hut, to send one of the girls to a day school. But when term was due to start, she couldn’t find it even though she took the grass thatch apart. So all the children were at home. Because of this, it didn’t seem fair to send Joseph to school and not the girls. So Margaret said she would find sponsors for the two girls as well.

When talking about these children, the Anglican Bishop of Soroti (Bishop Charles Obaikol, who is now the Uganda Patron of TESS) and other church leaders pleaded with Margaret to set up a sponsorship programme as there were so many bright girls in the camps who were not able to go to school and were therefore being married off as young teenagers and having children. Margaret, whose husband, Roger, was running Teso Development Trust (TDT) at the time, said it was not something which TDT would want to be involved in, and it wasn’t something she could manage on her own, apart from finding sponsors for Joseph’s two sisters. Even the Church of Uganda Development Officer, who worked with TDT to set up a variety of development projects throughout Teso, said that the education of girls was a greater priority than the traditional development work which TDT was supporting, as it was the key to the future long-term development of Teso.

When Margaret asked for two sponsors for Joseph’s sisters through the TDT newsletter, more than two people responded. So she told the Education Office they could take on a few more bright girls – and so TESS was born, much against the wishes of Margaret and TDT, who didn’t want to be involved! It was never planned, but just grew and grew as Margaret became passionate about the children being sponsored, all of whom she came to know personally. So in 2009, TESS became registered as a separate charity.

Now, at the end of 2011, TESS has 266 children being sponsored at all levels of post-primary education, not just at secondary school. Because completing secondary education does not actually equip young people to get jobs or even find other ways of supporting themselves, TESS is now committed to taking all the sponsored children through to whatever level is most appropriate for each one. Although we target girls, because their need is greater, there are also some very bright boys who have no hope of continuing in education after primary school, so TESS is committed to taking up to 15% of boys in each annual intake of 30 new children.

We now have students doing a wide range of courses including vocational courses (eg: tailoring, catering, business studies, electrical installation, bricklaying, plumbing, fashion design, carpentry) and professional training (nursing, teaching, clinical officers, laboratory technicians). We also have about 30 at universities doing subjects such as law, development studies, social work and education. As we have only been sponsoring since 2004, very few of our students have completed their education yet. But of those who have, all but one are now in employment, such as teaching, working with an NGO and nursing. Sadly, we have lost a few along the way who have become pregnant, almost all through coercion and rape. Depending on the circumstances, we have been able to take some of these back to continue their education when their babies are old enough.

TESS is no longer concerned with just sponsoring a relatively few children, but with supporting and developing education throughout Teso in a variety of ways.

In 2006, we ran the first annual Retreat, now known as the Life Skills Conference, for our sponsored students. This was an opportunity to try and fill some of the gaps in their education as well as time to meet each other and participate in a wide range of leisure activities, something which they never do. We have included teaching them something about setting up small income-generating projects and giving microloans to those who have put together satisfactory proposals. Many of these have been very successful.

Our students attend about 45 different institutions in Teso and throughout Uganda. We have encountered so many problems in the schools. Supporting the building of Shalom International School for Life-Long Learning as a model school was a logical development of the work of TESS. Shalom will provide relevant, quality education and in-service training for teachers, as well as opportunities for adult education, facilities for teenage mothers and their babies, and outreach programmes.

We have developed a link with Loughborough University Teacher Education Unit and enabled newly qualified teachers to spend a few weeks teaching in schools in Teso.

In July and August 2011, two volunteers (Sophie and Rita) ran a two day entrepreneurship workshop for 36 of our students who were on long vacations and gave out more microloans. They visited many of them in their homes to support them in their business projects. They also met with many other groups in Teso wanting help in entrepreneurship.

We have also facilitated a workshop for 86 head teachers run by Ambrose Kibuuka, the author of Creative Guides and “After University – What Next?” (see http://edirisa.org/index.php?section=5&cat=138), helping them look at the problems in the Ugandan educational culture and how these can be addressed.