Update by Executive Director - Justus Miwanda

The year 2010 started in high gear because as we ended 2009 we had noted a lot of growth in personnel, infrastructure and area of coverage. So we started with an awareness of the growth as a blessing but also as a challenge.

DEPUTATION VISITS
In this year the executive director has been invited to New Zealand and Netherlands to raise more sponsors for individual children and other capital projects. In New Zealand he was able to meet new sponsors and a few old ones. Netherlands was a new ground for us however from the results and responses it shows that the message was taken positively.

THE NEW AREAS
Towards the end of 2009 INUG ventured into reaching out to new areas. It was resolved that we move to Kayunga district. In this respect three schools and 2 church planters were identified. As I report now both of the church planters have received motor bikes to ease their transport and a total of 81 children have already been sponsored in the new partner schools. The board is yet
to consider another area as the next out reach.

THE VOCATIONAL SCHOOL
This is another area where we have registered success. More students have registered and we started a new course in motor mechanics. This came as an outcry from the community that it was a much needed course especially for male youths.

The challenges through

• Most participants failed to pay their dues
• Lack of tools and equipment for proper instruction

We would like to make the vocational school a money generating entity so that we could subsidize the running costs and enable more participants to enroll. This year there are a total of 109 students at the Vocational School.

THE SPONSORSHIP DEPARTMENT
Our operations highly depend on this department for it goes out to identify and bring on board children who are really in need so that we can reach out to them with ministry. At the moment we have children sponsored at Buikwe, Kiyindi, Lugazi, Matale, Kirindi, Kikandwa. We also have those who are in higher institutions of learning.

There is a challenge of students who qualify for higher institutions but cannot raise fees for the courses. We are trying to work out a strategy for assisting them otherwise our efforts would be wasted.

This is the table of sponsored children as per country.

BUIKWE AND KIYINDI PRIMARY SCHOOLS
The schools are running well, with the enrollment standing as follows.

One of our emphases this year is to see that the academic standard of our schools improves. So we have stressed the importance of providing text books for both pupils and teachers. We have also organized teachers workshops to keep them informed and refreshed regularly. We thank our Australian, Canadian and New Zealand offices which have funded the text book
project and workshop facilitations.

Kiyindi school still needs more classrooms for its numbers have increased a lot.

THE HEALTH CENTRE
In the last six months the health centre has received funding in form of equipments and capacity building workshops. This is in the respect of reducing babies and mothers who die at birth. There has been registered increase in the number of patients who come to the clinic by 60% compared to 2009.This may be accredited to the presence of the ambulance, the regularity of the visiting doctor and the community outreaches.

We still need to encourage more mothers to come for delivery at the centre.

THE FINANCIAL WELFARE
It has been noted with concern that due to the growth in numbers and radius of operation our expenditure budget has grown tremendously. There is great need for INUG to think of and start money generating ventures locally. Two things were thought of; stepping up the vocational school to became a money generating entity especially the tailoring part to start with. Secondly to utilize the undeveloped land by planting a forest. This sounds long term but the most viable one. Also encouraging more non sponsored students in the secondary and vocational school was seen as another good strategy. Thirdly, to make sure that we handle all assets and recourses we already have responsibly.