NTUNGAMO PRIMARY SCHOOL

Elevating Education in Bwindi’s Highlands

The rural community of Nkuringo sits atop one of Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park’s highest vantages. Blessed with stunning views but few resources, the local community is reaching ever higher to empower its children with a brighter tomorrow.

In 2019, the people of Nkuringo partnered with Abercrombie & Kent Philanthropy to expand the local Ntungamo Primary School’s facilities with an on-site kitchen, library, staff room, and rainwater harvesting and storage systems. This partnership has also provided school lunches for over 600 students, as well as some 4,000 textbooks, and more than 400 uniforms, sweaters and pairs of shoes. The students have even started a new band — the first in the entire district — with instruments provided by the program.

AKP partner LifeStraw has also pitched in to supply the community with five water filters so the schoolchildren and their families can access clean, safe drinking water whenever they need it — a true gamechanger in this remote corner of the world.

Since the program’s inception, Ntungamo Primary School has seen marked improvements in enrollment, attendance, national exam scores and graduation rates. There’s also a new bounce in the schoolchildren’s step — one that earned them the Spirit Prize at the recent District Education Festival.

What’s next for the school? The program aims to rebuild an additional classroom block, construct a new pavilion and hall, and maintain the school lunch program for all students and teachers. With this continued support, the sky’s the limit for the children of Ntungamo Primary School.

Our work with the Ntungamo Primary School was motivated by the Allison Family, who were inspired by their visit to the school while in Uganda to go gorilla trekking.