About Us
Classrooms, Toilets, Auditorium, Offices and a Dorm
Uganda Schools Project – It started with a kitchen
In 2022 POE built a kitchen so Mukono School could cook breakfast and lunch onsite for the children (and not in a wood building with an open fire). We built this in memory of Jerry Smallwood who founded POE, loved the mountain gorillas and would have loved this school and our project to give all the children here a better education and a chance to go on to high school and university. Because so many more students were enrolling and actually showing up at school on a daily basis now that breakfast and lunch were provided and other support was in place, further infrastructure improvements were necessary to accommodate the growth. We built some pit toilets, first for the girls and then for the boys. We upgraded the solar power system, twice – once for the new building and then again to support the Digital Classroom. In 2024-2025 we built a 2 story building with 5 classrooms, a multi-purpose room, flush toilets and some offices which opened in the fall of 2025! We are now paying for a total of 15 teachers to help staff these new classrooms and keep class size down.
Below are photos of what we have completed so far, but we have more plans! Please see our Plans for the Future and how you can help!
Plans for the Future – How You Can Help!
We continue to look for ways we can improve and expand our Uganda Schools Project and welcome others to join our efforts to change the lives of children in Uganda. Our plan is to build another 2-story building with 5 classrooms and a staff room on the first floor and a girls dorm on the second floor. The students in P6 and P7 usually board at the school because they have classes in the evening and on Saturdays and some come from far away. The current girls dorm situation is tough – crowded, no lighting, no space for belongings, barely enough room to walk between the bunkbeds and no toilet or shower facilities. Mukono School has become very popular, so we have agreed to limit enrollment to 900 to avoid continually having over crowding issues. With these additional classrooms, we will be able to stream all of P1-P7 to have smaller class sizes.
Scott Smallwood, who jumpstarted what would later become the official POE Uganda Schools Project back in 2018 with his random act of kindness in funding the original Mukono School lunch program, passed away in February 2026. Donations were made in his memory and some of those will go towards this new project, which he would have loved!
If you are interested in helping us build the dorm and classrooms or helping us with all of our ongoing projects, we would love to hear from you. We are passionate about the Uganda Schools Project and we encourage you to ask us about visiting the School too. It’s an amazing community and we feel so lucky to be a part of it – please join us!
If you would like to visit Mukono School, check out this video…
https://youtu.be/dOeONv3QHlo
If you are thinking of donating, check out this video…
https://youtu.be/DbULkDJTmd4
Link to our donation page…
https://poescholarships.org/get-involved/donate/
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