A Multi-specialty Medical Camp with specialists from Mukono Health Centre IV and Nama Wellness Community Centre was conducted at St Peters Natabulirwa Church of Uganda Primary School on Wednesday (Oct 11) by Roofings Group, Uganda’s leading steel products manufacturer.
The response of the school to the camp was enormous and immensely gratifying. A total of 960 pupils of the semi-rural school that Sikander Lalani’s firms have been helping since 2012 received Eye check-ups and Dental examinations that were also conducted by the team which also included medical staff from Roofings Rolling Mills, Namanve.
A survey carried at the school out in September had discovered that most commonly screened cases requiring attention were eye ailments, dental, and respiratory conditions. The pupils were also dewormed of tinea/ringworm with more diagnosis of ear effections worked on, eczema, scabies, gastro intestinal disorders, mumps and warts carried out.
“St. Peters is our school, the school educates a big number of children whose parents work at our Roofings Rolling Mills here in Namanve,” John Bosco Nsubuga, Deputy Human Resource Manager at Roofings said.
“As a company, we look out for innovative ways to improve the communities in which we work and we want healthy and strong workers in future.”
More than 20 per cent of the school’s 960 pupils are employees’ children or beneficiaries of the Namanve Industrial park based Roofings Rolling Mills.
Roofings Ltd has been carrying out such medical and preventive health camps frequently as part of its Community Outreach Programme.
“That school is one of the projects that Roofings Group holds dearly and as promised, the welfare of the pupils and staff is paramount to us,” stated Stuart Mwesigwa, Business Development Manager. “
He added that the medical camp also achieved a key aspect of teaching pupils proper personal hygiene habits to avoid such illnesses.
In order to improve hygiene, the Roofings Group also recently donated a huge capacity water tank so that pupils will have a clean water source easily harvested from the new classrooms.
Attendance skyrockets
With different backgrounds and language barrier, St Peters Natabulirwa has seen a complete turnaround in terms of welfare, infrastructure development and day-to-day activities thanks to the millions of shillings Roofings Group donates to them, the head teacher Florence Nabasumba intimates.
“When Roofings started helping our school in 2012, the enrollment was just 230 pupils but now we have the highest number of pupils in the area thanks to better classrooms, purified water, lunch meals and even sponsorships to the most disadvantaged children,” Mrs. Nabasumba said while thanking Roofings Group. “There are so many big factories here in Namanve but none of them has given our school a helping hand like Roofings does.”
But one big challenge says disrupts children from school is the lack of enough teachers for the government aided school.
With almost 1,000 pupils, only 14 teachers are stationed at the school, putting the ratio of teacher to students abnormally high. Uganda’s Universal Primary Education teacher to student ratio is 1:50. But at St Peters Natabulirwa Church of Uganda Primary School it is 1:70.
“We have on several occasions applied to Mukono Municipality Education office but they keep postponing giving us more teachers. This coupled by lack of accommodation for the ones we have employed here are the biggest issues holding St Peters back for now,” the head teacher lamented.
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