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The Uganda School Project (TUSP) Harry Bucknell left Dulwich in 2005 and Sean Richardson in 2007. After university both found themselves in corporate jobs (insurance and property management respectively) that left them feeling unfulfilled. Life came into even sharper focus for Harry when on a trip to Uganda he was involved in a potentially fatal car accident. For Sean a family bereavement at the same time that the family business was sold caused him to re-evaluate his life. Both wanted a change in direction to something that was more meaningful. A chance discussion at an OAAFC training session was the start of a relationship that led, in 2016, to the creation of The Uganda School Project, a charity which supports educational development in rural Uganda. The first school that TUSP supported was Bumakenya Primary School in the village of Makenya in the Namisindwa District of Eastern Uganda. Over the last six years the project has resulted in far reaching educational and infrastructural outcomes in one of the most breathtakingly attractive parts of Uganda but one whose isolation has, over many years, resulted in a lack of access to vital services including healthcare and education. UNICEF has estimated that 32% of children in Uganda who enrol in primary school are likely to drop out before finishing the prescribed seven years. The statistics are worse for girls and for children with any sort of disability.
In September last year, TUSP and Dulwich College joined forces and TUSP became the College’s Lower School Charity of the year. Sean and Harry spoke to the OA Magazine about their journey so far.
How did the idea for the charity come about?
The project was born when Harry went out to Uganda at the start of 2016, and did a recce with a friend. He found Bumakenya Primary School in desperate need of help. ‘It was a humbling experience’ Harry recounts. ‘A number of friends came out to help in the early days but it was Sean who spent the most time there. Our first project was the construction of a classroom, just one classroom. It was paid for with £5000 that we had raised from a black tie event back in London. Our guest list was made up of broke 20 year olds and we only charged £30 for a ticket. It was so amateur. Thank goodness we made some money from the raffle. That paid for the first classroom’. Once the community accepted that your offer to help was genuine, how challenging was it to get the project off the ground? Initially it proved to be very challenging. There were many broken promises and missed delivery deadlines. But we have thankfully found someone, a local engineer, who understands the quality control we are looking for and with whom we have built a great relationship. The issue that we are now finding is in many ways no different from here in Britain. Materials and fuel prices have gone up by over 30% in the last six months. The pound has also lost value and despite our efforts at fundraising it feels a bit like two steps forwards and one step back. In addition the local conditions are so different from anything we experience at home. The village is very isolated and in the rainy season roads can become impassable and it is not unknown for bridges to be washed away. Once the first classroom was built we moved quite quickly to the next, then a third and a fourth. Now the school has eight classrooms and a hygienic sanitation system which is crucial in a region that still suffers from cholera.
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