Teddy's story
Teddy, 14, is studying in class 7 at Bundikakemba primary school in western Uganda.
Tuesday 7 August 2007
Teddy is the youngest of four, and her parents are peasant farmers. Teddy is a motivated student, despite the difficult and long walk she faces every day to Bundikakemba primary school, situated in a fairly remote mountainous region near Bundibugyo. But Teddy is frustrated by the lack of proper classrooms at her school, and because students face constant disruption in their dilapidated outbuilding 'classrooms', where chickens, goats and drunks routinely wander through.
When it rains lessons are abandoned, and conditions are so bad that many children have dropped out of school altogether. Teddy is determined to continue her studies, but wonders if she will pass Primary Seven given the school's difficult conditions
Teddy's story
"I'm in Primary Seven and I've been studying at Bundikakemba primary school for five years. But I live in Busaru and it takes over an hour to walk to school each way.
"I find it difficult and I'm often scared because rapes and road accidents are common around here. And sometimes, once I've made it to school, it starts raining and there are no lessons and nowhere to find shelter.
"I do enjoy my classes at school and I want to study so I can become a headmistress and advise and help children. I want to pass Primary Seven, but it's difficult when we have no classrooms and face so much disruption.
"I wish this school had enough classrooms, textbooks, desks and latrines. There's only one latrine at the moment, and it's horrible. And our studies are always interrupted because sheep, goats and chickens just wander through our lessons and distract us, and madmen and drunks too. That's quite scary, but we don't have any walls to keep them out.
"At least if we just had textbooks we could study hard and pass our exams, and then, if we started passing, more children would come and it could be a good school. There aren't many children here compared to other schools because we don't have any classrooms. There are too few of us in the lessons, and we always lose sports competitions because we're such a small school. But if we had proper buildings lots of children would come here and we could be the best, not the worst."
