Community Action
The Community Action programme works on projects within the local community and the wider world. Local projects have included establishing a wheelchair basketball team, feeding the homeless, visiting nursing homes regularly to establish relationships with residents, gardening at the Sue Ryder Hospice and reading with asylum seekers who desperately need to learn English. Others have assisted in the Pre-prep School with swimming, dancing, reading and sports classes, and still others have helped the School manage its recycling or catalogue the theatre props department.
Further afield, in 2005 Dean Close established a link with a school in Uganda.
A New Dorm for Nakatukura
We made our first visit to Nyakatukura Memorial School in Western Uganda in 2005 where we were shown around the boarders' living and sleeping quarters. They consisted of thin sponge mattresses on the stone floor of classrooms. Students slept two to a mattress, and had no places for storage. It was hard for them to stay clean and tidy but they managed it better than most of us!
The following year we made it a priority to purchase some triple-decker beds. The students cheered when they were delivered, and they were carried into the classrooms for assembly. Now the teenagers were able to have their own bed, with room for storage underneath. Their jubilation was about more than comfort: it was a living place; a tiny strip of space that was just theirs. However, we were still concerned about the need for proper dormitories with supervising staff to support and care for the students.
A huge fundraising push ensued. Our tour treasurer, Rev Can Timothy Watson gave the war-cry: £15,000 for a new girls' dorm in time for the 2009 summer Sixth form trip. The Uganda Fundraising Team headed by Kate Miller set to work. It was all hands on deck: the Removes took up Al Groom's £10 challenge, raising money through dinner parties, car-washing, nail painting and a Commemoration photography booth. Cake sales, socials and donations from Dean Close individuals and families ensured we hit the target... a week before departure!
Cheers and shouts accompanied the deliveries of sand, cement, nails and timber as a big work-party of local labourers appeared on the scene at Nyakatukura to get building. I had the privilege of praying with Annet in her Matron's flat around which she proudly showed me. She will be the sole supervisory presence for both girls' dormitories - around 140 girls! Last month the boarding house was officially opened by the Bishop of Ankole Diocese, Dr George Tibesigwa. We are reliably told that the girls are delighted to have such a ‘home'- complete with solar lighting (a novelty) and a spacious veranda, where they enjoy relaxing and studying, sheltered from the sun and rain.
What next? We have set ourselves the target of raising £16,000 for a boys' dormitory in time for the Sixth form trip in 2011!
LA Burton
Head of Community Action