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Mary McDowell Center for Learning is a Quaker school of approximately 150 students dedicated to serving the educational needs of children with learning disabilities. Founded in 1984 Mary McDowell has a long history of community service rooted in Quaker values. Lwamaya Primary School is a school of approximately 350 students located in a remote rural area of the Masaka District of Uganda. Of all our Ugandan sister schools Lwamaya's situation was the most desperate. With classrooms for only 3 of the 7 grades, and those classrooms in a terrible state of disrepair, with antiquated pit latrines in danger of collapse posing a major health problem, there was no lack of work to do.
Positive Planet's objectives are always to build capacity of our sister school communities to improve the quality of education over the long term. In order to accomplish this we first encourage investment in major structural improvements that will continue to pay educational dividends over the long haul. In keeping with these goals Lwamaya's first two projects were the construction of four new pit latrines as well as a four-classroom building, so that for the first time, Lwamaya will have indoor classrooms for each of its seven grades. In 2005 the pit latrines were completed and construction was started on the new classroom block. In July 2008 Lwamaya's brand new classrooms were completed and new desks and chairs for all of its students delivered. Positive Planet is now working with the local community to develop sustainable solutions to the lack of clean drinking water.
These impressive projects have been funded by the over $30,000 raised by the students of Mary McDowell through their annual read-a-thon. Every year all of the students enroll numerous donors to support their sister school while encouraging reading. Students have received multiple lessons on the geography, culture and the history of Uganda.
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