This blog features news, updates, information from Kasese Humanist School, an education institution that comprises of a nursery, primary and secondary school.
The school is built on the foundation of Science and cherishes Humanist values, critical thinking and evidence based learning.
We operate as a nonprofit charity and our school serves both vulnerable and well to do children giving them chance to attain education. Our school motto is ; With Science, we can progress
1.What should you do, in order to be ‘good’ or ‘do what’s right’?
Answer:
You should try to lead a full and happy life without harming others. One way to do
this is to help other people to do the same.
Question 2:
2. Who or what tells you what is right or wrong?
Answer :
You use human nature to decide what is right and wrong. There is no god or holy
book to turn to.
Question 3:
Why should you try to do what is right?
Answer:
The use of reason and empathy helps us live well together in groups.
Those whocare about others and act on it usually have better relationships and more fulfilling lives - they are happier.
Question 4:
Is there any way in which bad actions are punished and good actions rewarded, like
karma, reincarnation, heaven or hell?
Answer:
The world is full of injustice - but being good and trying to do the right thing.
generally helps you live happily with other people.
There is no life after death. We should make the best of the one life we know
We have.
We should try to make the world a better place, because we can empathize with the suffering of others. Any rewards and punishments we may receive are here and now.
- The Association is running a Public Library which is now open to the general public. It opens Monday – Saturday , 9:00 AM – 12:30 PM.
- We are running a school called Kilembe Valley Humanist Primary School, the first secular school in Kasese district set up on the Foundation of Humanism and Science. The school support young pupils in availing to them primary school education. For more information about the school you can visit the school website at www.kvhumanistschool.blogspot.com.
- We are promoting Free inquiry, humanism and free thought to people in our community. We are doing this by arranging meetings with the locals and Under ground house to house approach. We are holding regular meetings with our members educating them about humanism, free thought and sciences. These meetings are held twice in a month, every first and last Sunday in a month.
- We are promoting Science Education among students and pupils by availing to them access to science books and we are planning to be holding seminars, debates on the usefulness and goodness of science in boosting development. Plans are under way to move around schools in western Uganda area to encourage them open up Science & Humanist Clubs.
- We are raising a voice on all forms of injustices, discrimination against our people especially on domestic matters, Civil liberties, Homophobia and Human rights freedoms.
- We are engaged in establishment of Nursery beds in Kasese District. we plan setting up a Botanical garden and practicing organic farming,
- We are lobbying for assistance from western donor nations to support the less privileged and vulnerable persons like orphans, street children, disabled persons and widows. The assistance sought is needed to cater for the provision of basic needs for these people.
Kasese united humanist association has initiated the establishment of a private humanist nursery/primary school set up on the Foundation of Humanism and Science.
The school is called Kilembe Valley Humanist Nursery/Primary school and its set up on the Foundation of Humanism and Science.The idea of begining the school was an idea raised by Mr Bwambale Robert, the Founder and Director of Kasese united humanist association together with Mr Baluku Yusuf both of them humanists hailing within kasese district region.
The school is located in Katiri , Makerere village in kilembe sub county, a distance of about 10 kms from Kasese town in Western Uganda.The school is being housed in rented structures of the defunct kilembe mines limited and formerly before initiation of the school those houses used to serve as residential places for some mine workers.
The school premises are in good shape and the school management together with effort by the parents has helped in shaping the structures to suit the school premises.A small play ground is in place for the pupils to pass their leisure and the school is served with electricity and piped water.
The school now has a total of 180 registerd students and the school is offering nursery Education and Primary Education and so far below is school enrolment for last term ie February intake 2010:
Nusery Class:
LOWER ( BABY) 34
UPPER 21
Primary Class:
P. 1 39
P.2 37
P.3 20
P.4 17
P.5 12
CURRENT SCHOOL STAFF
Masika Nevercate Qualification Grade 3 Teacher
Sibuthokwa Zackus Grade 3
Thembo Remegio Grade 3
Kyakimwa Teddy Nursery Certificate
Ayikaru Gladys Nursery Csrtificate
Kalende Simon Senior Six Drop out
Magamba Jackson Grade 3
Atemi Mary Senior 5 Drop out
CHALLENGES FACED IN RUNNING KILEMBE VALLEY HUMANIST NURSERY/PRIMARY SCHOOL
1. INSUFFICIENT FINANCES:
The school since it begun has been undergoing financial set backs and at the moment funds to effect smooth running is still needed,The source of funds has been largely been contributed by the local community as payment of school fees of their pupils but owing to the financial crisis hitting hard on the side of these parents some of them are living below the poverty line and entirely peasant farmers,others were former workers of kilembe mines who at the moment are out of service and other retired.
The School Director Mr Baluku Yusuf and Bwambale Robert have tried all they can to inject in some financial resources out of their pockets with an aim to uplift secular education in this area.These is problems encountered in paying for teachers salaries and the non teaching staff.
2. HIGH NUMBER OF ORPHANS AND NEEDY PUPILS
Kasese and kilembe area in general is a locality that was affected badly by rebel insurgencies of the Allied Democratic Forces ADF and National Army for the Liberation of Uganda NALU and these attacks led to loss of lives in which men and women lost their lives leaving behind orphans,These attacks led to the attack on Kilembe Main Market located afew metres from our school in which it was set ablaze to ashes and local business people lost their merchandise and became poor.
Kasese United Humanist Association in a meeting that was held at the school recently in Mid March 2010 promised the Guardians that it will try and raise this issue to fellow Humanist,atheist and Rationalist Community all over the world to make sure we seek for foster parents to help in sponsoring the orphans and well performing needy students.
A Total of 41 Pupils in our school got themselves registered and are awaiting placement to potential sponsors.
3.GENERAL RENOVATION OF THE SCHOOL
Though the school management in conjunction with Kasese united humanist association have tried all they can in ensuring renovation of the structures, still more effort is needed to put the buildings in good shape like painting the entire premises, thorough renovation of the school kitchen, finishing up the new pit latrine which is under construction, equiping the Staff room/ Office with furniture and some office items and installing a shelves where we can be able to shelf the books and also putting a school library in place.
All the above have been not been possible because of the limited finances we have in our reach.
4. FENCING OF THE SCHOOL PREMISES
The school boundary so far is marked by temporary rids and there is a need to put a perimeter fence around the school so that there is security of the school properties not to be stolen by intruders and also securing easy monitoring of our pupils and privacy reasons.
The southern side is served with a brick wall but other places remain not covered,once we put the fence,there will also be a need to put a gate.
5. LIMITED SCHOOL TEXT BOOKS
The school doesnt have enough books to be used by teachers as Teaching Guides, we are operating on afew books purchased on our meagre resources and these are needed urgently for they play a vital role because its where the teacher gets the topics being taught.
Also books to belong to our school library are still small.
6. URGENT NEED FOR MORE TEACHERS
The school is getting a challenge of competent qualified teaching staff because at the moment we still have school drop outs on our teaching staff list, a total of nine teachers is still a small number but the reason we still have a few little staff is because we still cant maintain having a bigger staff and at the same time we are having hardships in meeting their salaries and further still what we give them is still pea nuts and there is a need to increase on their salaries such that they are motivated to teach.
7. LEGITIMACY OF THE SCHOOL
Kasese United Humanist association together with Mr Baluku Yusuf have tried all they can to follow the right channels and have the school get registered with the local authorities and so far the school has been registered at Vilage, Parish and Sub county Levels and plans are underway to have the school registered at District and National level.We hope to do this before this year 2010 ends.
REQUESTS FROM THE ENTIRE RATIONALIST WORLD
Kasese united humanist association embarked on this project so that it helps the young people of kasese to also get chance and attain Pre primary and Primary education so that we build a stronger foundation is modelling the younger generation on a secular point of view free from dogma and indoctrination of ancient religious beliefs.
We are kindly requesting the entire Humanist, Atheist and Rationalist community all over the world to support us so that we make our innovations a reality.Under this we need assistance in any of the forms mentioned below:
- Request for Teaching Volunteers to teach in this primary school and get to know more about the African Child,Quality of education at the same time getting to learn about different cultures and learning to live and volunteer in a foreign country.
- Kasese United Humanist Association in inviting request from potential Humanists and Atheists all over the world to help and sponsor any of the 40 Orphans and Needy Students at Kilembe valley humanist nursey/primary school, interested Foster parents are requested to write to the School Project Coordinator or Write to the Director, KUHA, P.O.Box 58 Kasese Uganda or Email info.kuha@gmail.com for details.
- We Request for Financial or Material Donations in support to the the school such that we are in position to run the school and advance it to greater heights.
- We request international vistors getting a tour to Uganda to visit us at Kasese united humanist association or the school and assess what we are doing and perhaps look at our accomplishments and the load we are carrying.
- The Association has set up a Public Library which is now open to the general public.
- We are promoting Free inquiry, humanism and free thought to people in our community.
-We are holding regular meetings with our members educating them about humanism, free thought and sciences.These meetings are held twice in a month,every first and last sunday in a month.
- We are promotingsciences among students and pupils by availing to them access to science books and we are planning to be holding seminars,debates on the uselfulness and goodness of science in boosting development.
- We are raising a voice on all forms of injustices, discrimination against our people especially on domestic matters, Civil liberties, Homophobia and Human rights freedoms.
- We are engaged in establishment of Nursery beds and so far we have got one nursery seed bed in Bukangara along Bwera-Kasese Road. One of our members has provided a 13 acre piece of land to help our association in utilising it for Tree Nursery beds,we plan setting up a Botanical garden, practicing organic farming,promote eco-tourism on this land,its situated in Bugoye sub-county,Busongora North in Kasese district.
- We arelobbying for assistance from western donor nations to support the less privileged and vulnerable persons like orphans, street children, disabled persons and widows.The assistance sought is needed to cater for the provision of basic needs for these people.
- We are supporting our members by offering advice, skills on how to run income generating activities and looking for them better markets for their products.Some of our members are engaged in small scale poultry, goat keeping and Bee keeping.
- We have established a Parties & functions equipments for hire service to act as an income generating venture for the Association in which we help people having events and functions to use our Chairs.The association is yet to purchase Plates,sauce pans and Tents for hire so that this service accomodates well the needs of our people.
ACHIEVEMENTS BY THE ASSOCIATION
- We have managed to create some friends of our association with international organizations based in USA,UK and Australia.
- Opening up of the Public Library which is now in operation ready to offer knowledge on science and freethought readable contents.
-Nursery beds to provide the tree species are now in place though we still seeds and seedlings.
- Registration of the Association with the local authorities.
Certified documents of our organization:
- We have our office on plot 31 matebere road.
- A Post office box servingas a Mailing address is in place.
- Our blog on the worlwide web is operational and can be accessed any time,any where worldwide.
- We now have a Bank Account in the names of our organization.
- Our membership enrolment is gradually increasing since we started mid last year (2009).
Importances of being a Skeptical / Atheist / Humanist / Rationalist / Freethinker
Humanists are much concerned advocating for a free world because we want to live in a world where we are surrounded by rational, knowledgeable people who care about critical thinking. We care because the world would be a better place if it were not populated by powerful fantasies in spirits,rewards,spirits,hell etc.
Many atrocities have been committed in the name of a Supernatural omnipotent God,taking and example of what is taking place Israel and Palestine,What is happening in Nigeria between muslims and christians and this has caused loss of lives in the name of religion,i guess this world could have been a better place assuming such divisons along religious lines were present.The september 11th attack on the world trade center building in New York is something not worth forgetting, done in the name of religious fundamentalism.
Humanists try to use our brains to separate what is worthy of belief from what is not, and we stand to be corrected incase we are proved wrong.We believe this is a good thing to give chance to understand the world we live in better other than doing some thing or taking it to be absolute truth.We care because we value honesty and integrity, and we know that our lives will be better if those around us also value honesty and integrity.
Humanists and other rational people are more concerned by the high rate of hypocrisy evidenced in our people's actions for example political and religious leaders proclaim that "all human life is sacred"and the very people are "destroying human life in the hopes of saving human life some thing which isnot ethical,"by this i mean existence of religious wars and potical wars which have different motives influencing them to happen like economics mostly.
Does science has the answer to all our questions?
Humanists believe Science can answer only empirical questions and it can't answer all empirical questions. That's why science is so interesting. If it can't answer a question it doesn't give up and declare a miracle has happened. Science tries to figure out a way to answer those questions it cannot now answer. Science isn't infallible and it often gets the wrong answer. Unlike irrational faith, however, science has ways of determining when it has made errors and ways of correcting those errors.
Science has a set of public methods for investigating, debating, arguing, and resolving empirical disputes. These disputes are best dealt with by scientists in the scientific arena.
Isn't skepticism (or atheism) or Humanism a kind of religion with its own faith in science (and reason)?
The answer is a capital NO due to the points mentioned below:
- Humanism,skepticism is not a set of beliefs and Nor is atheism.
- They do not have elaborate mythologies built around them.
- They don't involve practicing any rituals.
- There isn't worshipping anyone or anything.
- In science we use logic, and reason in the attempt to root out error, not perpetuate it by disallowing challenges to beliefs, as religions do.
- There is no belief in rewards and punishment ie Talking about heavens and hell,angels,ghosts.
- There is no devine revelations in science and we do not believe in them for they lack real tangible evidence.
- There is no "holy or sacred books" in science,hte question scientists ask is who determined that such books should be holy or not?Who placed there such categorization.
- There is no virgin births in science,science is all about reality,its not mythical......
Kasese united humanist association has been mobilising book resources on Humanism,Freethought and Sciences since june 2009 and so far the campaign has been going on smoothly though only a section of friends have assisted.
Our Director of the association has made lots of appeal requests to individuals and organizations,good enough those with a kind attitude have responded while others have just kept a deaf ear to our request but we are optimistic more assistance will come in after we have opened this library late this month of Feb 2010.
Importances of this library
- Its going to act as a resource centre to offering knowledge about Humanism and free thought.
- Its going to reduce on iddleness and redundancy among our youths as they will be engaged in reading our literatures.
- People utilising this library will realise that indeed Humanist principles,mode of life,Humanist values are indeed the best for we aim at shaping our people into free people with free minds,free from dogma and indoctrination.
- This library will be a meeting point of people giving them chance to interract with each other in sharing ideas.
- This library is going to act a research centre to all those who still can believe that man reallyusing his reasoning capabilities can make this world a better place,many books in stock can therefore be in position to provide answers to controversial issues especially concerning Science and Religion.
Donate to Kasese united humanist association Library
Its a wise idea taking your time and donate books,magazines,periodicals,newsletters and journals to our association as these items will help thousands of people in kasese district yearning to know Science and Free thought.
Its a wise idea especially among we humanists,atheists,agnostics and other rationalists in general with lots of books in our personal bookshelves not respond to a such call like this one to help those who need also to get knowledge which actually is the foundation of our idealogy.
You can Help our Book Appeal Campaign in any of these ways
- Get a book off your shelf ,bring or send to us.
- In case you belong to a group you can choose someone to collect those books and send to us.
- A kind person can also help our association be put on the mailing list of their newsletter and journals.
- Be kind and help us pay for subscription costs to a book or magazine company in your locality to allow our association be put on the mailing list to start receiving those reading materials for example we could love to be reading latest Humanist magazines and periodicals from around the world.
More books needed in the subjects listed below:
- Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Agriculture, Home economics, Small business books, Leisure magazines,Scientific journals, Humanist magazines, Geography books, Medical periodicals and journals.
Contact Information for the Library
All letters or packages to our book mobilization campaigns should be addressed as below:
Donate to Kasese united humanist association Library
Its a wise idea taking your time and donate books,magazines,periodicals,newsletters and journals to our association as these items will help thousands of people in kasese district yearning to know Science and Free thought.
Its a wise idea especially among we humanists,atheists,agnostics and other rationalists in general with lots of books in our personal bookshelves not respond to a such call like this one to help those who need also to get knowledge which actually is the foundation of our idealogy.
Our Public library is going to be a beneficiary of books donated by Books Abroad Organization and this is going to strengthen our book bank as its gonna help us get access to books on a wide variety of subjects.
You can Help our Book Appeal Campaign in any of these ways
- Get a book off your personal book library or shelf ,bring or send to us.
- In case you belong to a group, you can volunteer and collect those books and send them to us.
- You can also help our association by putting us on the mailing list of a certain newsletter, journals or magazine.
- You can help us pay for subscription costs to a book or magazine company in your locality and instruct the company to be sending to us copies by post mail.
- You can go ahead and support our library grow by aiding us financially.We now have a Bank Account in the names of Kasese united humanist association and incase you have such kind of support,write to us for full bank details on our email info.kuha@gmail.com.
Contact Information for the Library
All letters or packages to our book mobilization campaigns should be addressed as below:
The Library Section,
Kasese united humanist association
P.O.Box 58
Kasese
Uganda
East Africa
The library is now operational and the community people are complimenting our innovation,though the number of readable materials on the shelves are still small,we still appeal for more readable resources.The struggle to dessiminate knowledge into our people isn't for KUHA alone but for all of us so we still request for book donations from friends,welwishers.
We would like also to place a computer in this library because it will help us in keeping data on the books,magazines and newsletter records at the same time helping our organization in its office work,we also require a Printer, a scanner or a Photocopier.All these are vital requirements in a modern library.
Association Bank Account:
Kasese united humanist association has opened a bank account in our names,this bank account is a necessity just like any other institutions or persons for it will help us in keeping our Associations funds,easing remmittance of international funds from friends,sympathisers and welwishers.
Our Account was opened with POSTBANK UGANDA, Kasese Branch
Account Name: Kasese United Humanist association
Account Number: 2110031000025
Publicity of our association:
We have installed a Sign post along the main road (Kasese - Mbarara road) to display our name and what we stand for.Another signpost has been placed just opposite our office.The purpose of this is to guide our vistors not to get lost and at the same time letting the world know of our existence.Our people still know little about being a Humanist but we are optimistic once they read and discover what humanist values and ethics is all about we shall succeed and transform the kasese community into a better place.
Income Generating Activity for KUHA
Our members in our first meeting early this month proposed that since we are a new organization and have not secured any funding both locally and internationaly,there was a need to put in place an activity where the association can be tapping some little shillings to help in the running of day to day activities and office maintenance.
Members proposed a Parties & Functions Equipments for Hire service.The items to be purchased for usage were as follows: Plastic Chairs, Tents , Plates , 2 Plastic Water tanks, 5 Bigsize Sauce pans.These items are to be hired at events by people in our community and at the same time our organization can still use them when it has functions.
With the funds so far raised we have started with 46 Plastic chairs.
Soon we are still drafting a proposal to forward to our friends to request them to help us in this activity because if at all we have a good financial background then work in implementing our activities will be easy because we need to hold seminars,print brochures,pay our workers,provide allowances to our colleagues going into the field,we plan to sponsor programs on local radio stations especially those on matters of Human rights, Environment and Health.
Kasese United Humanist Association Public Library:
Kasese united humanist association has opened the doors of its Public Library.The library is located next to KUHA office on Plot 31 Matebere road,Kiteso Upper and is stocking books on Humanism,Free thought literature,Science books,Free thought journals & newsletters.
The library opens three times in a week,Every Wednesdays from 9:00 AM - 1:00 PM and on weekends( Saturday's & Sunday's) from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM.
Its open to the general public and kasese united humanist association members.
The library facility still needs more books to meet the demands of people in our community so the campaign for more book donations is welcome.
More Books Needed are as below:
- Biology books
- Chemistry books
- Physics books
- Agriculture books
- Home economics books
- Small business books
- Leisure magazines
- Scientific journals
- Humanist magazines
- Geography books
Incase you would love to support Kasese united humanist association Public Library,send your book donation to the address below:
