On the 7th of October 2017, Roke Telkom Uganda, in its bid to give back to the community, paid a pleasant visit to the good Samaritan orphanage in Lugonjo, Entebbe, Wakiso district.

The good Samarian orphanage is a home to 150 orphans for whom it provides free primary and secondary education and basic needs. With no direct support whatsoever from the government, the orphanage education is entirely run on the good Samaritan hearts of 10 volunteering part time teachers and donations and handouts from well-wishers. Given the limited resources, only 62 children sleep at the orphanage while the remaining 88 sleep at their guardian’s homes.

With just a temporary building, the orphanage was started in 1999 with 30 orphans. Luckily, in 2004, Mr Paul Scruton, a Briton working in Uganda at the time, assisted the orphanage with acquiring the land where the temporary building stood. While continuing with the Good Samaritan work, Kisoboka, a German based group in Uganda agreed to support the orphanage by paying teachers’ salaries, admin and utility costs, among other things from 2011 to 2016. This in turn enabled the Good Samaritan Orphanage to take on more children which raised the numbers to 248. The unfortunate pull out of Kisoboka in 2016 due to a lack of resources, led to the orphanage downsizing to 150 children. The agreed upon funding/support period was for 5 years and the reason why the support was not continued after that is unknown

Some of the biggest challenges faced by the orphanage administration are limited scholastic materials and the hefty examination registration fees required by the government for all the candidate classes. In addition, they need support to construct supplementary buildings and to put finishing touches to the current ones. It is for this reason that Roke’s Team 1, with Paul Byamukama as the team leader took part to show appreciation to the orphanage administration for it’s vision, and to give emotional support and care to the children. In the process, we were able to carry out a needs assessment on how Roke can contribute to the future development of this institution and the people around it. We shared a hearty meal with the children and later handed out gifts and provisions to the children and the administration. It was a privilege to share basic nutritional and health care items with the children, and just put a smile on their faces. In return, we were given a warm welcome from the teachers and the pupils who entertained us with songs, dances and poems. Later on, we were involved in a friendly match which turned out to be not so friendly, when the children defeated us by two goals. However, it was such a great experience and we as Roke Telkom are entirely privileged to be a part of this great move to help the future generation. We therefore pledged to pay their electricity/Umeme bill(s) and check on the children at least once a month.