School Director, Peter Kiwanuka
Peter and his wife Sandra are pictured here at their hardware store.
Headmaster, Kenneth Kiwanuka
Kenneth is pictured here at the school.
Board of Directors
The Board is pictured here at a recent meeting.
Coming Soon
About Us
Bethany Centre primary school is a day and boarding mixed nursery and primary school offering education to both boys and girls aged 3 years to 15 years with a Uganda English national curriculum. The school is a refuge for vulnerable children, providing not only education but also food, clothing, and health screenings. It began with a few children from the nearby village of Jjungo in 2005. Using donated materials from community members and money from his salary at the time, Peter Kiwanuka built the first school building. It is now a school for 600+ children in 10 levels of classes, nursery through Primary 7. The campus sits on approximately 14 acres and includes 4 buildings of classrooms, a kitchen, a boy’s dormitory, a teacher’s house, and a girl’s dormitory is under construction. There is a soccer field and are gardens throughout the property cared for by teachers and children.
Services
Boarding is provided for the older students and those without adequate care from guardians. The boys initially stayed in a rented small home just outside the school boundary, and the girls lived in one of the classrooms. Soon the lease on the home was not available and the boys moved into another temporary home. Seeing the need for a more permanent facility, a dormitory was completed for the boys in 2019, allowing up to 80 boys to live on campus during the school week. A classroom was used as a makeshift dormitory for the girls until 2021 when a girls’ dormitory was completed and can house up to 80 girls. The children that board have shown great improvement in their success in school. These children do not have to struggle with making the long-distance commute to school every day. They also are able to have extra lessons and are more focused on their studies than those who commute.
Athletics: A soccer field was completed in 2013 and there is an active team competing in county games against other schools as well as inter-class participation. We encourage living a positive youthful life with an active body and mind.
School Uniforms: Children are also provided with school uniforms. These include the regular uniforms, sportswear and casual wear for the boarders. Where necessary, exercise books, pens and pencils and other scholastic materials are provided, especially to those children who can’t afford them.
Medical Treatment: There is a big challenge of providing treatment to lots of children who get sick with different diseases because of the lack of a medical clinic at the school but where possible, the school helps to provide medical drugs for different illnesses such as headaches, malaria, coughs, flu and also treatments for simple accidents that happen at school.
Food: Breakfast and lunch are provided to all the children and staff and supper to the boarding section.
Electricity and running water: Two major projects were funded a couple of years ago through the support from Bethany Centre Alliance, First Presbyterian Church of Baton Rouge and friends of Bethany Centre locally. 1. The provision of clean and safe running water to the school 2. Provision of electricity to the school. The water provision project greatly improved the hygiene situation for the school and the community at large whereby there has been several households who have connected to the water pipe for the first time and are enjoying the running water pipe line. The same applies to the electricity line.
Transportation: Transportation is also provided to those children who used to walk long distances to school. This was provided for by the local community in Uganda through organizing funds to buy a mini-bus. Although the mini bus is small and has to make several trips, it has greatly encouraged children who would have found going to school very tiresome and difficult and therefore lead them to drop out of school early.
Instruction spans from nursery classes to Primary 7, which is the graduating class. The Headmaster is Kenneth Kiwanuka and there are 22 teachers plus 9 staff persons which includes the Director Peter Kiwanuka, Assistant Director Ivan Luutu, Mr. Fix it, the Security Guard, the Community Chairman, and 4 cooks.
There are three classes in the nursery section: baby, middle, and top class. These classes are separated according to a child’s age and level of attained knowledge. Topics taught for nursery include literacy (reading preparation), writing, singing, playing games and Bible stories.
The school offers Mathematics, English, Social studies and Science for primary one up to primary seven. The lower primary classes use a thematic approach to teach the subjects and the upper primary classes are more subject based, each level increasing in difficulty. The Primary 7 students work towards taking the National Leaving Exam which all of Uganda’s primary 7 classes are to pass to graduate. This is necessary to proceed to Secondary or high school.
The children also participate in games and sports especially soccer, athletics and netball for the female children.
Academics
The teachings of Jesus Christ are are the foundation for the effort to foster spiritual and emotional health in Bethany Centre children. The school has two programs: a chapel program is held every Friday morning before classes begin and also Sunday school for the young children on Sundays. A Sunday church service held at the school is led by a Pastor who also teaches at the school and includes members of the community together with children from the upper primary classes.
The Youth Corner is a place where young people find space to socialize, get empowered with skills and knowledge that help them overcome different challenges in life, and a place to open up to someone they can trust and share their different experiences and possibly find the necessary help. In collaboration with teachers, parents, health centers, the church, and community well-wishers, the encouragement of healthy, supportive relationships is part of this effort. Leader Ivan believes that the most significant factor in any person's life is the people. Music, dance and drama, outdoor games, doing puzzles, running races, yoga, soccer and other physical activities are encouraged during their time off from school. This helps the children learn good sportsmanship and team playing. The youth also participate in debates during youth camp, and are given guidance and counseling especially on HIV/Aids awareness campaigns and proper hygiene. We believe this has a positive impact on the lives of young people and the whole community at large.
Manners of the Heart – This respect-based heart education curriculum is taught by classroom teachers and supports social and emotional learning by teaching self-control, responsibility, and respect for others.
Fostering Spiritual &
Emotional Health
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Health & Safety Education
The school has benefited from its partnership with the nonprofit organization Knickers for New Life (KFNL) which works to raise awareness of the barriers Ugandan girls face to health, education, and economic opportunity, and to work towards the removal of those barriers. With the help of KFNL, hygiene instruction is ongoing and the girls and female staff members are given a yearly supply of knickers (underwear) and sanitary supplies. All the children receive mosquito-repellant soap to take home in an effort to reduce the rate of malaria cases in the community. Additional handwashing stations have been added throughout the campus and greater measures taken in sanitizing the latrines.
Gardening - "A Garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful watchfulness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all, it teaches entire trust." Gertrude Jekyll.
As part of life skills, we have an agricultural education program which allows the youth to participate and discover how to grow crops i.e. corn, vegetables, beans, potatoes, cassava and other foods that play an important role in their daily diet. The Youth Corner plays an important role in promoting and preserving the environment through tree planting as well as practicing sustainable farming.
We believe that by having the children learn to grow vegetables and other crops, they are not only improving their diet, but learning a skill to help carry them through life.
Life Skills
