Nile Vocational Institute

Today I visited the Nile Vocational Institute in Njeru, ~70 kilometres east of Kampala, on the northern shore of Lake Victoria.  It is one of the 3 vocational schools run by AEE Uganda.  The school compound is green and tidy, with a huge soccer field. 

It has some wonderful old Singer sewing machines.  

They actually still teach their students to use hand planers.

They have a made-in-Shanghai vernier calliper in its original box, in their automobile shop. 

Three students in the hospitality program made us a very nice lunch of fried chicken, potatoes and vegetables. I like the potatoes particularly. 

I met many of the teachers.  They seem shy, but sincere and caring.  The school used to receive major financial sponsorship from a German organization, which enabled them to take in a lot of orphans and street children for free.  But the Germans stopped supporting.  Now they have to charge at least partial school fees.  But how much can the orphans and street children pay?  The roofs of some of the buildings are debilitated and leak when it rains.  

They have 18 ancient computers for 1,000 students.  There is no network, and no Internet. 

They do have Internet access for the teachers, room and administrative offices. They want to extend Internet access to the students, but found it prohibitively expensive.  They ask for help.  Can we?