Story By DAVE KING

Kika is Lugandan for amazing. That is what Launceston Rotary Club are, according to Emma Thompson, Head of Year 10 at Launceston College.

The Cornish Rotary club and college have been working together for more than 13 years on an educational project in Uganda after Launceston College had formed a link with the Molly & Paul Childcare Foundation, supporting disadvantaged children.

Launceston Rotary Club has consistently supported Launceston College’s work in Uganda by topping up the college’s own fund-raising with financial donations to fund toilets, IT equipment and other resources. The college has organised trips for the children to see first-hand the work taking place.

One of the focal projects has been a school at Bunjakko Island on the shores of Lake Victoria which opened in February 2018. On one of the first student visits they developed a farm, taught ballet and astronomy to the students, provided books and a solar panel, painted classrooms and performed a play. Launceston Rotary supported this trip by donating money to support the projects.

The college’s 2019 trip to Bunjakko Island Vocational School with 11 students and three teachers, supported by a Launceston Rotary donation, heralded the building of a new staff building with toilets and showers. The students threw themselves into shifting bricks, digging holes and decorating.

“We also taught lessons, decorated classrooms, bought mosquito nets, played sport, visited the orphanage at Kamuzinda and provided over 30 scholarships to students who were about to leave school due to lack of funding,” added Emma.

A 2020 trip was cancelled due to Covid, but the college worked on a project to ​support girls who were missing school because they could not afford to buy ​sanitary items.

Launceston Rotary Club bought 15 sewing machines, a knitting machines, an ​overlocker, as well as a supply of cottons, threads and scissors to send to Uganda ​which the students could make themselves.

Not content with that, the Cornish Rotarians decided they wanted to do more to ​fund a design and technology classroom at Bunjakko School and applied for a ​Rotary Foundation global grant to finance the project, as well as organising their ​own fund-raisers, such as a community concert.

Despite the restrictions of Covid, the classroom was built, the sewing machines ​and equipment purchased. The school re-opened after Covid in January 2022 ​when the design & technology classroom, funded by Rotary, could be put to good ​use.

“The DT classroom is kika,” said Emma, who is an honorary Rotarian at ​Launceston. “Students are learning invaluable skills, girls can attend school full-​time where they make and sell garments to pay for their school fees.”

Launceston College visited the Ugandan school last year with 17 students. They ​saw the Bunjakko students making their own clothes and sanitary items. The ​school has also employed a tailor who is making uniforms at a fraction of cost of ​some shops.

Bunjakko Island Vocational School is growing crops, using irrigation from Lake ​Victoria, planting crops such as sweet potatoes, cabbages, watermelons and ​vegetables, while in the classroom the students are taught subjects to O and A ​level.

Emma added: “We cannot thank Launceston Rotary Club enough for their ​continued support. Rotary clubs change lives, this project is sustainable, clever, ​progressive and incredible. It has and will continue to change lives for young ​people in rural Uganda.”