Forty children back in school
A term that started with unpaid fees ended with every child on the register. What it took, and what it cost.
When the school year opened, forty families in the community told us the same thing in slightly different words: the fees were not impossible, but they were impossible this month. A hospital admission, a failed crop, a month without work — and the year is lost.
The campaign covered fees, books, uniforms and a geometry set each. What surprised us was how little of the total went on fees: barely half. The rest was the things a school assumes a family can simply produce.
What we learned
Paying in one instalment at the start of the year is worth more than the same amount spread across it. A family that knows the year is covered makes different decisions in month three.
We will run this again next year, and we would like to double it.