FOR orphan Shariff Hugenyi school is not just somewhere to go. It’s a reminder he is still a little boy.

Because when he’s not in class, the seven-year-old is usually in hospital being treated for HIV.

Shariff doesn’t know much about his condition, only that it killed his parents and is the reason he has to take medicine.

But for four hours a day he can forget about feeling ill and learn and play with children his own age – thanks to a Welsh charity.

Sadly, Shariff is not alone as an African child condemned to living life with HIV/Aids. But he is one of the few who get a chance to study.

And although education is free in Uganda, many children cannot afford either uniforms or exercise books and simply don’t attend.

But a small Welsh outpost has been set up in one of the country’s poorest areas to help some of the worst-off children.

King’s Primary School in Bunanbutye, eastern Uganda, has a joint Welsh/Ugandan management team and was opened in 2004.

It is run by Ezra, a charity controlled from an office in the Valleys home of Mary Griffiths, a former headteacher.

Mary set up the private primary school, which has 330 pupils, after being deeply touched at seeing school conditions in Uganda.

She said: “In 1994 I visited a village that a Ugandan friend of mine told me was one of the poorest.

“The school was just a mud hut with one teacher and a piece of corrugated iron was being used as a blackboard.

“After that I raised £600 by doing a charity abseil and giving it to the village to use for the school.

“But one of the elders said to me, ‘If you really want to help you should build a school’ – and they gave me 14 acres of land.”

During the past 16 years, Mary has built the school a classroom at a time and it takes on around 60 more pupils each academic year.

But with limited resources progress is slow. Mary did manage to install a bore-hole so families can fetch fresh water instead of drinking from rivers infested with cholera and other diseases.

Mary said: “What we really need is electricity. We have a generator which we can use sometimes to power a computer but it’s not ideal.

“If we could get electricity we could use the school at night and we could run adult literacy classes from there.”

One of the biggest challenges facing Mary and Ezra is raising money and support in Wales.

Recently the charity received backing from Newport High School where students and teachers a launched £10,000 project to kit-out King’s Primary.

The link between the two schools was the idea of Newport High teaching assistant Helen Morgan when Newport High moved to a new £30m building.

Mrs Morgan said: “When I found out that all of this equipment was just going to be chucked out I couldn’t believe it.

“I thought it was too much of a waste and it could surely be of some use somewhere else.

“I approached our head, Gary Schlick, and told him my mad idea to send it all to Africa and surprisingly he supported it.”

Mrs Morgan said she was even more surprised when the governors and the local council agreed to let the Newport staff jet off for two weeks.

She said: “To actually go to Uganda and meet the children and teachers that will be using the equipment has been fantastic.

“On the last day we made sure we gave every child a new pencil and a water bottle – it was like it was Christmas day for them.

“I’m not sure the reaction would be the same if you gave that to children over here.”

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2010/03/21/welsh-charity-he...