The School Meals Programme at Sky Is The Limit School and Centre, Fort Portal, Uganda

We have been working closely with our partner, Sky Is The Limit Children’s Centre, since 2014 to give vulnerable and disadvantaged children in Fort Portal, Uganda the best opportunities possible. With the Sky Is The Limit Primary School and Nursery, we support 400 children aged 3-14 years old, as well as Fruits of Sky Youth Enterprise, and this year we launched an 8-acre Mama Rose Organic Farm project.

The school offers places to children in and around Fort Portal, whose parents are too poor to pay the school fees expected at other local schools. ’Mama’ Rose Mugenyi, founder of Sky Is The Limit Centre – who passed away in December 2021 due to the coronavirus – believed that all children deserve a good quality education in order to create happy, healthy and meaningful lives. This principle continues to be upheld by the staff of Sky Is The Limit today. Kind donors support children by sponsoring their education.

At Sky Is The Limit School, the children’s wellbeing always comes first as they are encouraged to reach for the stars. We run a school meals programme, where children are given a nutritious hot lunch and porridge every day as a means of overcoming the severe levels of malnutrition within the communities. This sets the children up to have enough energy to learn and play, while also contributing positively to their physical development as children.

The Mama Rose Organic Farm project

In February we launched a project at Sky Is The Limit School and Centre to develop an 8-acre farm to increase food sovereignty and battle malnutrition. Progress is going very well and as planned. The farm launch was a great success with locals followed by orientation and the start of the step-by-step theoretical and practical programme of learning at the MICAH organic farm training institute.  The ten Mama Rose Organic Farm trainees are excited about learning a lot and are “enjoying it so much”!

The local community is very interested in restoring what has been lost in the land/soil. They are opening up the land, planting grass for pasture, planting seedlings of 11 different crops, and soil testing kits have arrived so progress can be measured, and the right conditions be created for fertile crops.

By 2023, they expect to have some animals on the farm and some of the trainees are particularly interested in learning better ways to care for the animals.

Construction for the farmhouse is fast paced with workers already preparing the roof. Things are moving very quickly and smoothly along to:

• restore farmland that has been depleted by traditional farming methods
• increase yields of crop harvests and build a farmhouse where the workers can live and store food safely to reduce pests.

Once the farmworkers have been trained, we will provide opportunities to local young people to learn organic farming methods to help restore the ecosystem and increase job opportunities.

Our support for Sky Is The Limit Centre and all of its projects affect the future of the Earth and the Fort Portal community positively.

We support the children long after they leave Sky Is The Limit school

• Some of our donors continue to support the children from Sky Is The Limit up until they have completed University.
• Fruits of Sky graduate project consists of three business arms, a Boda Boda motorcycle taxi service and repair shop, a stationery shop with ICT centre, and providing Business Loans, to help bring sustainable income to Sky Is The Limit and contribute to the local economy while offering employment opportunities to local young people.

The farm will restore and protect the land for future generations by:

• training staff in organic farming methods will help restore the ecosystem for future generations, and promoting organic farming in rural Uganda.
• using approaches that work with nature to produce bigger harvests, reduce deforestation and that keep regenerate the soil and make best use of water.

It will take some time for the farm project to replace the School Meals Programme. We still need help to make sure the 400 children  get a school meal every day. For many of them, it’s their only meal.

You can  donate to Sky Is The Limit projects any time by going to our Donation pageand ticking the box ‘I would like this donation to go to a specific fund’ and choosing Sky Is The Limit Children’s School and Centre, Uganda from the drop-down menu.