High quality education for children in Uganda

Dear Nyaka Supporters,

We would like to introduce our long awaited Nyaka Notes Newsletter for Spring 2010. Everything that you love about Nyaka is waiting for you in this newsletter including interviews with our students on their progress in secondary school, a letter from our Board Chair on the progress he is seeing on the ground, and news of our book coming out in June 2010, The Price of Stones, authored by Jackson Kaguri and Sue Linville.

Also, attached below you will find a comprehensive report on our progress throughout 2009 in each of our projects. Included in this report is our ambitious goals for 2010. We are already well on our way to a great year!

Please know that all that we have accomplished to transform so many children's and women's lives who have been devastated by the affects of HIV/AIDS would not have been possible without you. From deep within our hearts, we thank you for your support and love.

Sincerely, Nyaka Team

• Nyaka Notes Spring Newsletter 2010 (PDF)
  
• Nyaka's 2009 Accomplishments 2010 Goals (PDF)
  

Dear Friends,

Our students' results are in for their Primary Level Exams (PLE)!

Students who scored a Grade A+: 8 Students who scored a Grade B+: 17 Students who scored a Grade B-: 1 and Students who scored a Grade C: 0

Not a single student failed the PLE. Our top scoring students in Grade A+ have been accepted into one of the best schools in the region, St. Jerrard's Secondary School in Rukingiri. Our other students have joined our Pioneering Graduates at Ishaka Adventist College in Ishaka. See a picture of our graduates below. You can also see a slide show of pictures from the graduation on the homepage of our website.

Monika Dietrich, a Michigan State University medical student, is at Nyaka right now conducting a nutritional assessment for our students at the Nyaka and Kutamba School. She will evaluate our Nutrition Program (including our school meals, school and community gardens, and the Desire Farm) in conjunction with a study of our communities' food customs in order to make sensitive suggestions on how we can better support our kids and our communities. Follow her blog at the link below.

The date is set! We will be opening the Blue Lupin Community Library on April 26th, 2010 and we need books and salaries. In many of our hearts we are tied to our memories of how our imaginations were invigorated by good books in safe public spaces when we were kids. Some of us as children, adolescents and adults escaped the anxiety of life through good books. The intellectual depth and knowledge we gained brought us into adulthood and maturity. Give the gift of a good book and a safe public space by donating towards the Blue Lupin Library. We are in the process of hiring a qualified librarian and purchasing books in Uganda.

Our Grandmothers speak up. Two our grandmothers with incredible courage and fortitude chose to tell their stories on camera for you, Grandmother Matrida and Grandmother Alice. We asked them to speak freely and talk about issues which were relevant to them. Follow the link below to watch their videos. Lastly, we would like to fulfill our responsibility to you by linking our schools' latest inspection reports. These two reports follow up on the last quarter of 2009 at the Nyaka and Kutamba Schools. They critique their successes and failures with progressive suggestions on how issues can be mended and the schools can perform at their best.

All the best,

The Nyaka AIDS Orphans Project

Links:

• Grandmother Alice and Matrida
• Monika Dietrich's Nutritional Assessment Blog
• Pictures from the Graduation 2009/2010

• Nyaka School Inspection Report 2009 (DOC)
• Kutamba School Inspection Report 2009 (DOC)