Jesse Johnson James
A total of 300 private school teachers rendered jobless due to the coronavirus pandemic on Thursday last week received food aid.
The teachers received 10kgs of maize flour and 5kgs of beans each.
The donation came from Restore International, a charity organization that runs Restore Leadership Academy, a private school in Amuru district.
The food items were solicited by a team of activists led by Evelyne Kimong. Kimong told our reporter in an interview that food is to support the teachers since their earnings have been affected by the lockdown that has now lasted for four months now.
“Since the outbreak of COVID -19 in March, teachers were laid off. We are aware that private school teachers are paid using fees collections and since parents have not been paying fees because their children are at home, schools cannot pay their salaries,” said.
“This means the teachers cannot cater for their livelihoods, basically, they cannot even afford what to eat,’’ she added. According to Kimong, they have registered a total of 1,500 private school teachers and are continuing to solicit more food items for them since the ones available are not enough.
“The food donation is not enough for all the teachers; the number we have right now is about 1,500 and we shall reach about 800 by tomorrow so that means we still have a huge number pending.”
William Openytoo Lucima, another activist revealed that the food items are still not enough for all the private school teachers in the district. He appealed for more support from well-wishers.
One of the teachers who benefited from the aid said on condition of anonymity: ‘‘We appreciate the efforts. It[donation] is so helpful,’ the teacher said.
There are about 350,000 private school teachers in Uganda. On Tuesday while addressing the nation on the state of COVID -19 in the country, President Yoweri Museveni pledge 2 billion shillings to support the SACCO of private school teachers as they are greatly affected by the current closure of schools.
