Central Buganda Academy and Career Centre

Greetings to all of you friends from Wide Smiles for All Through Education Charity, in Central Uganda! We are very thankful to God and to all you friends for standing with us since 2004 our objective shall always be to enable less privileged children the opportunity to acquire the required education for their growth and development who would otherwise have got no opportunity to benefit through education. Throughout the years, hundreds of students have benefited through our education sponsorship program.

They have graduated with Degrees, Diplomas, and Certificates in different fields of study and became middle-income citizens in Uganda. Students who have graduated have become: Carpenters, Beauticians, Electricians, Mechanic technicians, Practical nurses, Social Workers, Counsels, Fashion designers, Teachers, Business Men and Women, Economists, doctors, lawyers, and the list goes on…!   We congratulate all our graduates for their accomplishments while at the same time encouraging the 100+ in the pipeline between primary and university levels to work hard for better grades. 

As you can imagine, it has not been an easy journey to reach this far, but we kept pushing because I knew that our dream was real! Through our benefactors [churches and individuals], and sales from our agriculture produces, we have had to sponsor students in many different schools and this meant using a lot of resources since every single school has different needs and requirements and there was not any other way around. In the rural setting, no single school is facilitated well enough to cater to students’ varying skills and abilities to give them education in its real sense to meet the demands and needs of both the citizens and their communities. In the end, individual dreams are never realized nor are desired development being achieved for their communities. It is my strong conviction, however; that education should also aim at discovering children’s hidden potential and abilities for their whole round development.

From that background, I got convinced that if we had our own school we would have given the best quality education to so many students using almost the same resources used to sponsor them from many other different schools. This school will as well be our long-term strategic planning that would continue supporting our cause even longer after our departure to join the Lord.

Our hands are quite occupied, but also the other thing I have learned through this experience is that with love and where there is a need, before God nothing is small and everything counts. It is through that perception that I am inviting you friends of goodwill, to join hands with me to make this important investment; an investment in the future of deserving children in the greater Mpigi region in Central Uganda, an investment with Wide Smiles for All Through Education Charity. It will serve better for us to establish an elementary school with both technical and vocational wing for the purpose of instilling in our students a spirit of learning by doing. This is going to be the first school of its kind in the region and a practical solution for many students who cannot further their education to another level for one reason or the other. It will also be a solution for many youths lacking employable skills.

WIDE SMILES, is a dedicated not-for-profit Charitable Organization seeking to give hope to the most deserving children through Education. It will be an investment to break vicious cycles of ignorance, diseases, poverty, and strengthen the family, the society, and bring peace and prosperity to our rural communities.

We attach a greater value to girl child’s education and orphans in general. As you may be aware, the education of the girl child and the advancement of women have tragically been ignored in our communities. For centuries girls struggled against opposition from their own families, and orphans have also been victims of the circumstance besides facing blind bias from society. Though not at the highest rates today due to advocacy and ongoing sensitization, but still many girls continue to face discrimination in education and some have been prevented from attending school and have been overtaken and overshadowed by their boy counterparts. In the situation of an orphan, matters have always been worse.

The girl child is used as a domestic worker and her time for education is essentially limited. Her place in society has been reduced to a tool for raising resources through payment of dowry during forced marriages from the same people who should have given them protection. Unpaid domestic work is a full-time job for the girl child in the greater Mpigi region.

The girl child works almost 14 hours per day which results in physical constraints and fatigue. 70% of all domestic workers in Central Uganda are girls aged below 18 years. It is from the same region that many girls have decided to migrate to the Middle East region as an alternative in the search of greener pastures but in return faced horrible experiences those who survived to escape death! The unspeakable inhumane conditions they have had to endure are greatly due to lack of employable skills leaving them to work as housemaids which most Ugandans have come to agree that it is modern-day slavery!   Harassment, sexual abuse, and other abuses of domestic workers are common practices.

The girl-child migration in search of domestic jobs in urban areas of Uganda and elsewhere in the world has resulted in increased prostitution for economic reasons which has in turn increased HIV/AIDS and mental illness for those coming back from the Middle East.

For centuries, it has been a common custom among the traditionalists in my beloved Uganda to treat a girl child as a domestic servant. Girls and women suffer physically ill, dying of hunger, Sickness, pain, and stress leading to physical weakness, dependence, and Ignorance. Their lack of education leads to exclusion of girl children and orphans. These results in rejection, isolation, loneliness, insecurity, vulnerability, worry and fear, unwanted pregnancies, early and forced marriages plus sexual exploitation are the order of the day.

Again and again, powerlessness seems to be at the core of the girl child and the orphans’ life. The stigma of illiteracy continues to hunt young girls and orphans. A considerable number of youths have turned to taking alcohol and other drug substances most especially in urban centers in order to manage and ease stress, but still, girls have kept trying.

Now it is our chance to rescue the girl child and the other deserving children from illiteracy, ignorance, humiliation, rejection, isolation, and vulnerability. It is our chance to build a school- “CENTRAL BUGANDA ACADEMY AND CAREER CENTRE”– which will start offering quality elementary education in its practical applicability AND a Career Centre to offer employable and hands on skills to the deserving youths and children at a cost they can afford. It will be the answer to help them redeem their respect, dignity, confidence, and lost glory. The campus is planned to cater to 1,500 students.

We have got some land, to begin with setting up structures for this school. This is why we want as many friends as possible to hear our call. We have made some clay bricks already and the drawings for the first and the main building are done. This building will accommodate 7 classrooms able to house over 400 students and administrative offices including a sickbay.   

Please come on board to help us realize this dream and be able to provide the desperately needed education. Believe me, the obstacles standing in the way of girls and other less privileged children are greater than ever before in this era without education and employable skills. The obstacles to the progress of the girl child mean that her education is constantly interrupted and it is virtually impossible for them to learn as a day scholar. Some need to be in a boarding school.

This will be a better solution for the education of less privileged children in the country. We know of their desperate need for education, their despair, frustration, anguish, humiliation, shame, and stigma.
It is our concern that for each girl child denied education, it is an opportunity tragically lost.

I am humbly asking you to stand with me in the struggle to give hope to those who had lost it. God is on our side and I have no doubt that this year 2023 we will begin the construction of the school for God’s children. CENTRAL BUGANDA ACADEMY AND CAREER CENTRE will be the institution that will provide the desperately needed education and hope for Uganda’s future leaders. The school will support 100 students every single year who won’t have to pay tuition fees and will create an education fund to further support those students who will have demonstrated academic excellent to go through secondary and university levels. 

Standing by our side means a lot and your ideas and contributions will truly be an investment in the bright future of the deserving children in Central Uganda. We will certainly help these communities to grow and prepare leaders who will share their knowledge and expertise with the rest of the world.

Thank you so much for the time to read this concept spelling out our endeavors to support human development. No matter how small your think your contribution is towards this cause, it will certainly take us a long way in achieving our objective.
May the peace of God be with you now and forever!

Yours sincerely
Kenneth Kasule
Director,