The Great Primate Handshake team landed at Myende Island, a fishing village 10 minutes away by canoe from Ngamba Island, as guests for the first annual Music and Drama Competition which brought 6 schools from 4 neighboring islands together for the first time. The schools competed against each other through music and drama relating to the topic of conservation.
Myende Primary School
The land the school was built on was donated by Nekimbugwe Christin after she saw the school children trying to learn sitting under a nearby tree, as the nearest government-aided school was 15 miles away. The land was originally owned by Nekimbugwe’s Great Grandfather and from there was passed down to the younger generations. Nekimbugwe never had children of her own but when her brothers died of AIDS she took on the role of caring for her nephew and nieces, two of which still attend the school today.
When the anthropology team spoke to Nekimbugwe Christin, she insisted that the money was not an issue to her but instead all she cared about was the island’s children’s education. She also wanted to make sure that people knew that the land was not for sale and in fact has bought outlying land around the school because in the beginning neighbours were upset that a school was being built on the land. To resolve this issue Nekimbugwe saved up her money and just bought the land off of the neighbor. She hopes by this time next year the school will have a title to the land.
Myende Island School
However, the school does seem to be prospering and definitely helping provide education to many children that would not have a chance to learn any other way. Nekimbugwe says community members have come to her with concern over the standards of the school. Unfortunately, the teachers have not been trained as teachers and therefore the education is lacking in ways.
Fortunately, the school’s director Alonsio Omerikit has a good relationship with Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary where they joined forces to help educate the local schools on conservation issues. Conservation has become a big interest for many of the surrounding school children which spawned the creation of the first annual Environmental Music and Drama competition, consisting of wonderful music or drama acts on the topics of environmental conservation as well as all the everyday issues that may come along with it, such as hygiene and sanitation.
One of the school groups that performed at Myende Island
The school who came in first place won a trip to the mainland to visit the Ugandan Wildlife Education Centre (UWEC) while the runner up received a free trip to Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary.
