In April 2009, HELP International & HELP Uganda birthed a free primary school for the children of Masese, near Jinja on Lake Victoria, the mouth of the Nile. With the willingness and courage of Ben Lubaale, a teacher, and Frank Mutambo, an overseer, HELP Uganda Primary School began in May 2009. On the first day of school, 45 children that had never held a pencil, much less never been in a classroom, arrived excited to learn. In just two weeks, the roster had increased to 90 children, some orphaned, all willing to learn Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic.

Today, the school has grown to 202 students, ages ranging from four to 13, learning in both English and Lugandan. Four wonderful teachers are now spreading their knowledge like wildfire in four levels of classes. HELP volunteers traveled to Masese this September, teaching the children arts and crafts, dental hygiene, and, for the older children, math concepts like fractions and division. For the oldest class, there was even a small seminar held about abstinence and safe sex, a concept that is almost never discussed in Ugandan school systems.

The students’ improvements have been in giant leaps and bounds, the areas of studies increasing to Health, Social Studies, and Geography. No matter how eager they were to learn, however, very little can be absorbed by a distracted child with a chronically empty belly. HELP International quickly understood that no child was fully equipped to learn without a meal. In September 2010, HELP implemented a feeding program at the Primary School. Today, 202 children are receiving one balanced meal a day, complete with their own bowls. With the help of donations from people across the United States, just $5 will feed a child for two months. If you would like to donate to the HELP Uganda Primary School feeding program, please email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it