St Patricks students reach out to orphans
Students from St Patricks Academy on Wednesday reached out to orphaned children within Kampala village in Blantyre as one way of fostering the spirit of sharing during this Christmas period.
One of the students, Assantie Mussah-Gama said the students with the help of their teachers engaged in various fundraising activities to raise money and bought some gifts for the orphans.
She said: “We raised some money and managed to buy pencil cases for the children as we would like to emphasise the importance of education to them. We really believe with education these kids will realise their dreams and rise above poverty.”
The gifts wrapped in colourful packages symbolised the warmth of Christmas season as faces of children shone with joy as they received their presents from Father Christmas who initially entertained them with jokes.
Georgina Biliati, a learner in standard 4 at Catholic Institute (CI) primary school was happy to have had an interaction with high school students from St Patricks because it opened up her heart to a life of possibilities especially seeing her fellow children so keen to move forward with education.
“I have learnt that school can make one once vulnerable child become just as privileged as the kids that are at this school. It could even be that their parents even came from poor backgrounds but with education they became rich,” she said.
Group village head (GVH) Kampala thanked the school for choosing to donate to kids from her area amongst many areas that have kids with similar problems.
The GVH said as children, every festive season they see fellow kids getting gifts from their parents but as orphans they literary have nobody close to shower them with such and thus miss the essence of Christmas.
She said: “Christmas is time for sharing and socially these kids are excluded which means nobody is close enough to give them something during this period. There is no way such kids can grow with a sharing heart if nobody is able to share to them. It is therefore important that this gesture was extended to the orphans.”
Apart from the gifts presented, St Patricks Academy is expected to go to Kampala village to distribute to the orphans clothes that students at the school donated and some groceries for Christmas celebrations.
Events committee member for the school Caroline Kunyenje said the school is still fundraising and proceeds from raffle draw and other activities they are doing will buy the groceries that the school will distribute later.
“The school used 70 thousand [Kwacha] for the pencil sets but now we will give groceries for their Christmas celebration at home,” she said.
