From her infectious laugh to her "can do" spirit, Irene Ocwee Trends is no ordinary educator. The head teacher of Hilder Nursery and Primary school in northern Uganda knew during the first days of the pandemic that schools would be closed for far longer than the three weeks the government originally announced. She had to act quickly if she was going to save some of her oldest pupils.
“My school is in the slum area of Gulu in northern Uganda. In my heart I knew this was going to be long, this Covid," she told RFI.
"The background of the children and what they had gone through - from the war, and [the fact that] they’re from broken families. There’s a lot that we are already carrying as a burden in our community.”
Ocwee took 30 children, boys and girls aged 13 to 17 in the final year of her primary school, and brought them to live with her family so they would be able to continue their schooling uninterrupted. That meant free boarding too.
She picked the last class because that age group suffers emotionally, through puberty and familial responsibilities.
“If you don’t help that age, you won’t get another opportunity to correct it. If something happens to a six year old, an eight year old, you can still correct that,” she says.
Two-year challenge
It didn’t take much to convince the 30 pupils to live with their headmaster.
“I thought that with all the resources I have, I’ll bring the kids to my home, I’ll stay with them, and that will be it,” Ocwee laughs, admitting she did not realise the challenges she, her family and the students would face over the two years that followed.
Uganda imposed one of the strictest lockdowns on the African continent, closing schools for 22 months throughout the country. No commuter vans, boda bodas, or public transportation of any kind was permitted.
The government did not allow gatherings for fear of spreading Covid, so Ocwee decided to bar the parents from visiting.
“I was threatened by the government because someone reported that I have so many people in my home. They came and I told them, ‘this is my home, I have a right to keep people',” she says, explaining they left her alone when they realised she was only teaching school.
5am start
In Ocwee’s five-bedroom house, one bedroom became a classroom, one was the bedroom for her and her husband, and the three other bedrooms, including her eight-year-old twin girls’ room, was converted to a dorm.
It was an adjustment for the family.
“But I used to wake up at 5am because I have to put the food on the fire. If I don’t wake up at that time, everything will be late. I make sure everyone is up to bathe and make sure they go to class without breakfast,” she says.
Breakfast would be served at 9am.
The students went to three lessons a day in the room, with the last lesson, a mentorship program, was run by Ocwee herself, where students spoke about their day-to-day challenges.
“I would give them time to think and share their dreams, and to express themselves, how they feel about the current condition of the world, and Covid,” she says.
The students would have discussion time in the evening, which she says brought everyone closer.
Upheaval
The northern Ugandan city had seen a lot of upheaval over the past 20 years, as the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), led by warlord Joseph Kony, regularly stormed the area, kidnapping children.
Rampant poverty and lack of opportunity adds to daily hardships in Gulu.
“They shared a lot from their daily lives and the expectations they have about how they feel about Uganda," Ocwee says.
"We went deep [even] about how they feel about their parents. Some hated their parents and their homes, the life their parents made for them. They hated the community. And with that, you do open up so much.”
After the mentoring session, the students would have time to wash their own clothes, fetch water, and do their chores.
“I really wanted them to know that it’s not easy, that we all have to make sacrifices,” says Ocwee.
“I needed them to show me that they also wanted this. I told them they needed to be team players for this to work. We all have to play our roles, and believe me, we played it – 200 percent.”
Living off the land
Financing her homeschool during Covid proved to be the most challenging, says Ocwee.
The Ugandan government did not offer her any funding, and most of the parents plead poverty. Everyone found it difficult to make ends meet.
“Out of the 30 kids, five families gave us cassava, beans, and sweet potatoes,” she says. The rest prayed for them. “I got a lot of blessings.”
To minimise expenses, Ocwee walked five kilometres every Saturday to the local markets outside of town – public transport had been banned – to buy cheaper food to last a week for 37 people.
The students helped her farm on the 15 acres of land she owns, growing beans, peanuts, soya, and cassava, in order to make porridge for their breakfast.
The household also grew vegetables in the compound of her home.
“The kids would get the vegetables from the garden, calling them ‘special meals," she laughs.
Ocwee and her family had some savings, but it wasn’t enough. Even loans were hard to find in Uganda during Covid. The banks rejected her application for a 1,700 euro on the grounds that no one was paying back their loans.
In response, she first put up her home as collateral then used the few valuables she had in order to borrow from private institutions at high interest rates. She promised to pay them when the schools opened.
Changing lives
The school director lost friends and contacts during this time as she only went to the market or to the hospital if a child was sick, effectively isolating herself in order to protect the others.
Ocwee attributes part of her success in success in educating the students to just listening and paying attention to them.
“I wasn’t given that opportunity when I was growing up. No one paid attention to me. I wanted to go to school and my parents couldn’t afford it. I spent my childhood fighting to get money so that I could go to school,” she says.
The hard work and struggle has paid off. Her final year students took their national exams, and Hilder Nursery and Primary school was named the 20th top school in the whole country after the results were announced.
Her entire class will go to secondary school. None of the students became pregnant.
“It was then that I started realising what I did," Ocwee says.
"Their names were read out and the radio and everyone was talking about them, the children had their pictures in the newspapers. We did something good.”
The only thing she asks from her former students is that they “carry on spreading the love”.
And Ocwee continues to contribute. Out of the 600 students at Hilder Nursery and Primary school, 56 study for free.
Despite the horrors of the pandemic, she has fond memories of homeschooling.
“In the end, it was the most wonderful experience I’ve ever had in my entire life,” she says.
