On July 27-28, students from Niwot High kicked off the fabrication phase of ‘Cougars Creating Classrooms,’ a building project spearheaded by the Mwebaza Foundation to transform used shipping containers into instructional space for the Mwebaza Infant Primary School in Kyengera, Uganda.
Over the two days, representatives from the football, girls tennis, golf, cross country, and track teams, as well as the IB program, Robotics Club, and Boy Scout Troop 161, unpacked materials for the project and then painted the exterior of the containers, which will eventually help ease overcrowding in the four-room school that serves nearly 200 students in an impoverished area on the outskirts of Kampala, the Ugandan capital.
“The kids at the Mwebaza school are the poorest of the poor in their community,” Niwot Elementary teacher and foundation president Dale Peterson explained. “A lot of the students get to age 10 and drop out, because there’s not a school in the area that’s affordable for them. The Mwebaza school really wants to hold onto these kids, but there isn’t enough room in the classroom.”