The decision to support this school came about in 2020 when the owners of Navigator were invited to join a charity trip to Uganda to see the situation out there for themselves. Not surprisingly the visit was an emotional one and it was a struggle to see how the people and in particular the children in the village were coping, with no mains water supply and no school buildings to help in the education of the hundreds of children in the village.

The small organisation that the Navigator owners went to Uganda with was called Sweden Uganda Aid or SWEDUGA – and the group travelling quickly formed a support group and decided to get involved. An African organisation was about to start the school in the village but had to temporarily put a stop to it because of the Covid pandemic which hit the country badly.

The immediate decision taken by individuals on the trip was to donate the cost of drilling a well down 80 metres underground and installing a solar panel to provide the electricity required to pump the water up to ground level and in particular to the kitchen in the school. The provision of a good meal to every child in the school was one of the key aims – for many of them the only meal they would see in a day.

Luckily the water supply from the new well is producing far more water than the school needs so many of the families in the village have been allowed to benefit from the water from the well, reducing the number and amount of trips the children have to make to the nearest water sources outside the village. Some of the individuals on the trip donated enough to build some rudimentary but efficient school buildings so the children had classrooms to go to, to receive their education.

At this stage the team from Navigator decided to support the school financially. There was a small cost to the families for sending their children to the school but despite the small amount needed many families could not afford to pay anything towards their children’s education. Navigator decided to pay the teachers salaries and the salaries of other members of staff as well. Without this generous gesture there would be no teachers, no school and 200 or more children’s dream of an education would vanish.

Navigator’s owner says: “We were very moved by what we saw in Uganda and the pitifully small amounts needed to get the school up and running made it essential that we were part of the group that decided that we had to act. The smiles on the faces of the children and the staff at the school and throughout the village were all we needed to know that we had done the right thing and whilst there are hundreds of villages in the country that need help at least we had been able to make a significant difference in Kibisi.

“This has coincided with Navigator taking a stronger stance when it comes to corporate social responsibility and everyone working for Navigator is behind the work we do to support the school and the village in Uganda and we share regular updates with our staff so they know from month to month what is happening and how our donations are keeping the school ticking over and the levels of education high in the village school.”