|
Bruno Selugo - Missing out on his education
From The Coffee Chain Game
online pages.
 |
Credit: Geoff Sayer/Oxfam
Coffee in Mpigi: Bruno Selugo, 17, opening up land among the coffee bushes on his family's farm near Kituntu. Click for larger image. |
|
Geoff Sayer from Oxfam spoke to Bruno Selugo, grandson of a coffee farmer, and found that he really wanted to go to school. Secondary schooling is not free in Uganda.
Bruno Selugo is the grandson of coffee farmer Peter Kafeluzi. The whole family has been hit hard by falling coffee prices.
Though he was the fifth-born, Bruno Selugo (17) is the oldest survivor of 9 children. Bruno and brother Michael (15) have dropped out of secondary school because the family can no longer pay the fees. |
The school, 3 km from their home in Kituntu subcounty, Uganda, has seen enrolment fall from 500 students in 1997 to 54 at the end of 2001. Almost all of the families in Kituntu depend on selling their coffee for an income. With world prices falling to record lows, many have abandoned the crop. Bruno keeps himself busy on his mother's farm, opening up land among the coffee bushes so that the family can sow vegetables. But he would rather be at school.
'If I can go to school, I want to study to go into business. I'd like to buy and sell, perhaps have a shop. But I can't be successful, I can't have a better future if I don't go to school. I will just be left here, growing a little food.
'I was sent home again and again from secondary school. They don't care, they just send you away if you don't have fees. When you arrive the teachers just tell you to go back home. They need the money for their salaries. For a while my mother would try to find some money, a few shillings at a time, and send me back with it after a week or so. This is the main coffee season. Everyone used to go to back school with the money from coffee. But now the money is not there. The price is so low people are not even picking the coffee.
'The last time there were about 30 of us sent home together, and since then I haven't been able to go back. Even that few shillings is not there. A lot of my friends have dropped out too. The number of students at the school is falling. We still owe money and that's why I can't go back. We would first have to pay the money we owe, and then find money for the next term.
'I wish the people who use our coffee could give us a better market. We can't survive like this. All I want is to go to school.'
From The Coffee Chain Game online resource.
|
Cool Planet for Teachers has moved
