New school provides safe and accessible education

A Ugandan community founded an informal school in 2013 within semi-permanent grass/timber structures, which were unsafe particularly during the rainy seasons. Pupils sat on the floor or under trees when it was too hot, and students were missing more than one in five school days due to adverse weather.

Signpost International worked with the community to replace this with a three-classroom block to accommodate 180 pupils, including a library and study room for senior pupils. Classrooms were fully equipped with benches, desks, and blackboards and the library stocked with a wide range of books.

The school was made accessible for children with disabilities throughout. In addition to the construction itself, they also introduced activities to improve the school experience of these young people including sport, drama, music, and raising awareness of child rights and protection.

This construction project has been especially notable because of its focus on the environment from the outset. Not only did they carefully consider resources to have minimum effect, using locally made burnt bricks and timber from sustainably managed local forest, BFSS also provided funding to invest in a carbon offsetting scheme to counter the carbon footprint of the project.