Untitled Document

MBALE CONTINGENT REPORT

Mbale is situated in the East of the Country. It nestles in the plain beneath Mount Elgon ( an extinct Volcano with a peak of 4321 metres above sea level). Mbale was not included in the Uganda 2000 expedition Town list and therefore it was decided that Mbale should be offered a chance of a visit from UK Scouts in 2003.

Approaches were made in a visit by myself in January 2002 and again in February 2003. It was during the February 2003 visit that the Mbale Scouts escorted four UK Leaders including myself to the proposed Camp site just outside of Mbale. We felt that the site was too open and visible which then presented Security problems and probable unwelcome attention. We were then shown to a School, the Mbale Secondary School, situated near the centre of Mbale. It had secure gates with a guard, two large fields, toilet blocks, water and best of all a computer centre with Internet access. It was hoped top use this facility to get Expedition reports back to the UK.

In the months following this visit it was almost impossible to maintain a viable line of Communication with either the Scout Association or the School. Emails were sent but were never verified that they had arrived. The main source of communication was with the Deputy Head of the School, Sam Kuloba. He requested

Dear Mr. Takel,
sorry for delaying to get back to you in time. We have held discussions with Mr Osinde and the Headmistress of the school and specially noted the following:-
The entire school community is honoured to host you in August and they are eagerly waiting to receive you.
We agreed on the following two projects and we are of the view that you choose one.

project 1:

Renovation of the whole school plant. This will involve painting and general renovations of the school to give it a facelift.

project 2:

Construction of a 4 classroom block while co sharing with the school, this was reached at because the there is a lot of students pressure on the existing classrooms due to big demand.

I advised Mr Kuloba that although we were happy to do some work on the School it was in no way possible to be involved in either constructing or funding a new building. Therefore we could only have any involvement with Project 1. The last email (next page) came from the Headmistress, Mrs Wakholi. Note that the projects have now been reversed. This email arrived shortly before our visit to Uganda together with a list of costing to the total of Ugsh 127,426,055 which is approximately £42,000.
Therefore imagine my surprise when we arrived at the school to find the Headmistress telling all and sundry that we were financing a new Classroom Block.
This left us a bit confused as to what we were going to do whilst in Mbale. Osinde Aggrey, the D.E.C. assured us in February that aside from a bit of work on the School there would be an opportunity to work in the poorer areas, perhaps a playground project. To this end we had fundraised an amount of money to finance this. As things turned out, Osinde was now in the unenviable situation of having to explain the mix-up in projects to the Headmistress. Nevertheless the Contingent was able to paint the outside of the Main Building as well as refurbishing the Basketball hoops and boards.

The Contingent were able to visit nearby Schools, the Children’s Outreach Centre in Mbale and the Bulangira Disabled Association in Pallissa district. We met with the BDA Leaders who had made their way to Mbale to meet us.
We donated Ugsh 250000 to the Mbale SS for their New Classroom and joined in with a ground breaking ceremony for the foundations and planted a tree in commemoration.

We have also set up a Web Site for the Mbale SS School. Bob Turnbull has designed and registered the Site and we intend to fund the Site for three years. We hope that this website with it’s email addresses will form the communication link that we so desperately need. Mbale Scout Headquarters is supposed to form the Regional Scout Headquarters for Eastern Uganda but a lack of resources means that they are unable to get back ‘online’. Mbale SS may solve this problem. To this end the web Site has a Scouting page.

I have to say that our stay in Mbale was not as productive as we imagined it to be. The School was still in session and was in the middle of Exams. This stopped us from using some of the resources, especially the Computer room. The Scouts using the field, both Ugandan and British, felt as though they were living in a Goldfish Bowl, having a continuous audience whilst School was in session. However the relationships that developed between the Ugandan Scouts and the British Contingent highlight the strength of Scouting between different Countries and Cultures.

We had also decided to offer the two most deserving Ugandan Scouts a chance of climbing Elgon with us. Two Young Scouts were chosen. We supplied tents, sleeping bags and footwear. The trip was a huge success with all but one of the UK Scouts reaching the summit, although one of the Ugandans did not make it to the top.

The Contingent worked well together. The standard of camping was high, Hygiene was generally good and we had no recorded injuries or illness whilst in Mbale or on Elgon.

Indeed the only illness occurred at the end of the trip, while based in Kampala when one of the contingent appeared to have a flu like virus.

Marv Takel
Mbale Group Leader
U2003 Coordinator