The 16 teachers at Mweruka Junior School provide the children the gift of knowledge as a labor of love. Many of our teachers live a great distance away from this Mweruka village. They often spend a portion of their salary for local housing and return to their home for the school’s trimester breaks. Currently most are paid approximately $125 per month. This is below the government school salaries. This salary differential plus teaching in a remote setting is a challenge to retaining quality teachers. Mweruka Junior School is fortunate that it is able to assure teachers that they will receive their salary each month, year around. During the Covid pandemic the teachers and other employees have been paid their monthly salary. They continued to go to the children’s villages and teach small groups of children (no more than six at a time). They have worked to distribute food to 76 needy families of children attending MJS and to maintain the MJS campus.

Mweruka Junior School is blessed to have quality teachers and other dedicated employees. Currently there are a handful of donors who sponsor a teacher with a contribution of $100/month. Remaining support for 16 teacher’s and 5 employee’s salaries comes from the general fund. Our goal is to retain the very best teachers and employees possible. Your generous gift of $50 per month will help achieve this goal.

Yes! I can sponsor a teacher

For $20.00 per month (just 1 skinny vanilla latte or mocha Frappuccino per week) you can provide all the classroom needs for these disadvantaged children. At Blessings of Joy, we have great needs for basic classroom items. Notebook paper, test booklets, scissors, crayons, pens, pencils, chalk, rulers – supplies used in schools all over the world are just not available in schools like ours.

Textbooks and curriculum are also needed. Textbooks are provided to government schools by the government. They are not provided to “private” schools such as Mweruka Junior School. Students at MJS are taught from the “blackboard” transferring information into their notebooks. Blessings of Joy has received a request from MJS for textbooks. Currently BOJ does not have funds to support this request. The cost is approximately $10 for each of the 400 students. Imagine how much more a textbook would help facilitate a MJS child’s learning. A donation of $50 will provide textbooks for students.

Yes! I can help provide school books and supplies

Uganda has one of the highest rates of child malnutrition and undernutrition of the African nations. Ugandan children also have intestinal parasites and a diet critically deficient in vitamin A and iron. Hunger and undernutrition make learning difficult. When school is in session, all students and staff members at Mweruka Junior School (MJS), approximately 420 students and employees are given a hot meal cooked over a wooden fire. The Nutrition Committee created a menu and manages the program for MJS. Four days a week they receive porridge consisting of maize, soy, sugar, milk and a supplement called Body Boosters. Once a week they have a special meal that is a stew containing potatoes, beans, sardines, carrots and seasonings. We will be adding fresh fruit in season when school resumes.

Twice a year each student is given deworming medication and multivitamins fortified with Vitamin A and iron.

Suggested Gifts:
$50 per month will provide meals for 17 people for one school year.

One time Gifts:
• $30: Provides a meal for 1 person a school year.
• $300: Provides a meal for 10 people a school year.
• $4,000: Provides daily meals for one trimester.
• $12,000: Provides meals for all children and staff for one year.

Covid 19 Nutrition update: Since the stay-at-home mandate started in Uganda, people who are already extremely impoverished have been unable to work. In October our BOJ-Uganda nutrition team identified 76 families of MJS in desperate need for food. BOJ has supplied maize flour for those families for two months. If you feel called to support this program, a $20 gift to the general fund would be a blessing.

Yes. I will help provide food for the children

Facility upkeep and repairs are badly needed. Floors are worn down from 8-10 years of weather that creeps in and causes rainwater to flow into the classroom. Added to this wear are hundreds of feet daily in and out of that room. Window openings without windowpanes and door openings without doors provide little protection from the weather. Leaks in the corrugated iron roofs need repair. As teacher Justine explained, the “weather can interfere with learning”.

The cost of these repairs is in the thousands of dollars. Your donation of $1,000 or more would help with the repairs.

Yes! I would like to help improve the school for the children

In rural Uganda, shoes are a luxury item. They are also essential for good health. In the beginning of this ministry most of the children went barefoot and Jiggers were a significant problem. Jiggars are the larvae of sand fleas that live in the dirt. The female flea lays her eggs in the skin of her human hosts, most commonly feet. They are painful and have to be dug out of the feet and ankles by hand using a razor. Now that most children have shoes, Jiggers are rarely seen in the children’s feet. Children’s feet grow!  A pair of shoes costs approximately $17. They are made by a cobbler in a nearby town, also helping the community. One hundred seventy dollars will purchase 10 pair of shoes. 

The goal is to provide 100 children with shoes each trimester.

Yes! I would like to donate shoes

The primary reason that qualified graduates do not go on to high school after graduation is financial. There are no high schools near Mweruka. To go to high school means staying with a relative in a town where there is a high school or paying room and board at a high school. Three years ago Blessings of Joy began to set aside funds to pay for high school scholarships for two Mweruka Junior School graduates each year. The cost is $200 per student per trimester, $600 per year. This pays for tuition, books, school supplies, room and board. Each year the faculty at the school selects two of the top P7 graduates to receive this scholarship. One recipient is a girl and one a boy. As you can imagine this scholarship has had a tremendous impact on the students, Mweruka Junior School and the surrounding villages. Class grade averages have improved, specific teachers have been hired to teach in the areas where performance is weak, and the children write us to let us know how grateful they are to have this opportunity, an opportunity they take very seriously. It is such a blessing to see God at work.

Yes! I would like to support the scholarship program

There are approximately 400 children from surrounding villages who attend Mweruka Junior School. Not infrequently staff at the school identify a special need for a child. It may be clothing, mosquito netting, medical care, blankets or bed mat, etc. A special need may vary in cost from $5 to $25.

Yes! I would like to help meet the special needs of the children

You may not be certain to which opportunity you want to give a gift. Giving a donation to the General Fund is a perfect opportunity. Giving to the General Fund allows Blessings of Joy to apply your gift to an area of need yet unidentified or to an existing area that is short of funding. For example Nutrition is an area that occasionally needs additional funds. You can be certain that funds donated to the General Fund will be used wisely by Blessings of Joy

Yes! I would like to give to the General Fund