Get on the Bus Bandwagon

Let's give these kids a ride!

• we helped build some water tanks, 
• planted a garden to help feed the school kids,
• built a chicken house 
• supplied some chicks as seed stock, so the foundation could raise chickens for sale and become more self sufficient, thus less reliant on outside funding.

A "Hand Up", not a "Hand Out"

In short, our goal was to give a "hand up", rather than a "hand out", and we felt good about what we achieved. However, while there another need became quite obvious, a need that was necessary, unobtainable with their present funding, and with the rainy season looming, quite urgent.

Zane's Story

Friends of friends, and many people out there I may never have the chance to meet. Can I have just a few minutes of your time to tell you a quick story? Earlier this year I had the opportunity to travel with a group of nine to Uganda, Africa. Some of the things I saw and experienced while there have changed me, made me forever more grateful for the opportunities I had when I was growing up, and have given me a heart bent towards lending a hand up towards others who I now know are working hard to better their own reality.

I grew up on a farm in rural Alberta, Canada, and was raised with a notion that we most often get back results from hard work and determination. I was taught to be a net giver, not a taker, not to wait around for someone else to do what was needed to be done, but to start it myself.

With a little help from others, a lot can be accomplished.



Uganda is a hot country with seasonal dry spells, and many of it's citizens work small farms and gardens to feed themselves, their families and others. Hard work is not missing from their lifestyle as they often struggle to survive. Education, and the opportunity to go to schools and learn to read and to write is a dream for many, and a reality they pursue with enthusiasm.

I shook my head in amazement upon seeing so many small young faces in the early morning hours, before the sun was even up, walking alone, or in small groups of three or four, along side of the road, on their way to school. I learned that they would do this five or six mornings in a row, walk the one to six kilometres, then spend about eleven hours in school, just to walk home, do their chores,  get some sleep after what we'd consider a meagre supper, just so they could do it all again.

Their faces and their laughter were a delight to see and hear as they walked!


One particular morning we did leave early as we were on our way to the Kingsland School, which is a school in an even more rural setting, and reaches out to kids in the country that have even fewer options for education. We arrived there after many twists and turns, sudden stops, slowing down for ruts and washes in the road. I've driven many back roads, country roads, and lease roads, and we've got nothing on the roads in Uganda let me tell you.

Now Kingsland is off the main highway a ways, and is the only option for many kids in the area. It's also able to supply some busing to the little kids that live too far away to make that trek twice a day. When we arrived shortly after seven the bus had already made one run and was gone to pick up more students. In my mind, I was taken back o the over ten years I spent riding a school bus, to and from school from our farm. I remembered the cold mornings waiting for the bus, and the hot days with all the windows down and the dust coming in, and all the homework I did as I was bouncing along.

Then the school bus arrived with the second load of kids, and I could see the reality I knew was a lot different.


Isn't that great?

Oh, and the seats in that bus can be lifted out and the back can be filled with water jugs, so that during school hours in the four month dry season, the bus can be used to haul water, or it can be used to haul supplies, like sacks of beans or ground corn meal, and cane sugar or what ever else needs hauling.

I got a chance to drive that bus one afternoon, not with any kids in it, but with just one of the drivers, as he wanted me to see what his job was like. Remember I told you I was raised on a farm? Well, over the years while growing up I've had many a chance to drive a well used vehicle. I drove fuels trucks, buses converted to haul livestock, old grain trucks, manure spreaders that hadn't had a license plate on them in years.

Well, they had nothing on this bus. The power steering was long since shot, The shock absorbers squeaked and they clunked and didn't do much absorbing. The brakes were there if you pushed the pedal all the way to the bottom and then waited a bit. I was told the four wheel drive hadn't worked in years, and I wondered about that, thinking about the steep, rutted, twisting red dirt roads that we travelled to arrive there, and knowing that the rainy season was soon to be upon us, and wondering how they would handle that mud?

I was told that there's days they just can't use the buses, that the kids just can't go to school, because they don't have four wheel drive.

It didn't surprise me then, that shortly after my arrival back in Canada, that I learned that the old school bus had broken down again, and they had cobbled it together one more time, but you know, it's not worth the money to repair and is just completely worn out.

So here's where you and I come in.

Through research and asking around, we've learnt that a good used bus (new vehicles are rare, and very hard to come by in Uganda) will run about fifteen to twenty thousand dollars. Now that's for a diesel powered, four wheel drive equipped unit, that can be put to work immediately hauling kids to school, and hauling them to a better future.

I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is but I can't afford the whole thing. I'm asking for your help - no amount is too small. If you think this is something you could support, donations can be made right here on this site, and you're even eligible for a receipt for income tax purposes.

Come on then, get on the bus bandwagon with me, and let's give those kids a ride.

Thank you