Howareyou

A school programme for 15 disadvantaged children and young people that involves their families as far as possible.

Pupils in colourful uniforms run laughing across the schoolyard.
Children in the school programme

Howareyou is an initiative by Scovia Mukahirwa and her family: her father Andrew and her cousins Patricia, Isaac, Ronald and others.

01 — The initiative

How Howareyou began

Scovia has been socially engaged ever since she had to give up her nursing training because of her father’s health problems and the financial problems that came with them. At first she supported her partner, the father of her children Happiness (16) and Jaden (12), in his organisation Beacon of Hope. After their separation in 2017/2018 she began to work above all in her father’s neighbourhood.

Through her acquaintance with Charlotte Campbell and Sabine Görg, who volunteered with Beacon of Hope in 2013 and 2015, it became possible to send children in need to school with support from Germany.

A woman in an orange shirt stands next to a group of children in school uniforms in front of a school building.
Children in the school programme

02 — School programme

15 children, supported as a whole

Scovia cares about a holistic approach: a reliable school career suited to each child’s needs, with their families involved as far as possible. The school programme now supports 15 children and young people in total. Some of the children have no parents to look after them, and Scovia is the only adult they can rely on.

All the children attend boarding schools. In the holidays they are either with their families or looked after in a holiday programme Scovia organises, staying with her or in a house belonging to her father.

In detail, Howareyou takes care of these tasks:

  1. Keeping in touch with the schools. Scovia visits the children regularly and talks with teachers about progress, results and next steps.
  2. Contact with the families. Families are included in decisions. Parents, often single mothers, are encouraged to contribute what they can, for example snacks and drinks for children at boarding schools.
  3. Care during illness. Scovia makes sure the children receive the medical care they need when they are ill.
  4. Practical support. A suitable school, materials and clothing are put in place.
  5. Accounting. Every expense in Uganda has to be documented for SOLI’s charitable status. Howareyou collects the receipts and passes them on to SOLI.

The following photos are from a visit to St. Soteri Junior School and show the Howareyou house.

The sign of St. Soteri Junior School by a road, with the words Hic Incipit de Future.
St. Soteri Junior School
Pupils in yellow and orange uniforms wave from behind a red railing.
On the school balcony
A woman sits with pupils on a step in front of a red door.
Visiting the children
Children sit on a step and hold up green and red school clothes with the crest of St. Soteri Junior School.
New school clothes
A girl in school uniform fills a cup at a tap.
Drinking water at the school
Two women play ball with a group of children in a schoolyard.
In the schoolyard
Children in red checked school uniforms sit in the open doorway of a white bus.
On the school bus
A yellow school desk with a name card.
A place in the classroom
A pink and white school bus lettered St. Soteri Junior School.
The St. Soteri school bus
Blue and green metal trunks belonging to the pupils stand in a room.
Trunks of the boarding pupils
Three adults stand in front of an orange house with a corrugated roof, a dog on the grass.
The Howareyou house

Photos by Mirko Meister

03 — On the ground

With Balandize Kimeze

A representative of Howareyou regularly joins the group meetings of the farming project Balandize Kimeze and works with the participants on ideas for improving the group’s economic situation.