In 2009 when I was first in Uganda with Cherie and Kirsty, we built Kiwi House to rehouse the 100 girls currently living in the library and computer lab. With a grant from the Rotary Club of East Coast Bays in Auckland, we plastered, painted and furnished both the library and computer lab then diligently set out to fill the shelves and tables with as many books and laptops as we could find. When we left in November 2009, the shelves were sparse but it was a start.

On my return to KAASO in 2012, I brought with me 12 laptops which had so generously been donated by Louis Vuitton where I was working in Paris. They were just three years old and were received with open arms by all at KAASO. The computer lab was growing.

Volunteers at KAASO have continued to bring over second hand laptops and to teach computer lessons to both the children and teachers and computer literacy has been steadily growing. And now, thanks to Dominic’s trip to the USA last year, the computer inventory of KAASO has doubled. Corbett School in Tampa, Florida where Dominic visited with Mark Thompson, the head of the American National Education Program, sent over 20 computers and today Dominic has written to let us know that they arrived safely at KAASO. He also shared the exciting news that a full-time computer teacher has been employed to focus specifically on computer lessons for both the school and the community.

The shipping expenses of the computers were generously covered by the Trinity Rotary Club in Florida and KAASO wishes to express their gratitude for this as well as to John Mpagi in Kampala who assisted with receiving the computers at the airport in Kampala and transporting them down to KAASO.

It’s so heartening to see the KAASO support network growing – this was exactly what we’d hoped Dominic’s trip to the USA would achieve; through his travels his incredible charisma, passion and magnetic personality have helped spread the word about KAASO far and wide.

A huge congratulations to all who helped make this possible. I wish the students and Empowerment Group members all the best in their computer lessons and I look forward to seeing the newly stocked computer lab on my return to Uganda.

Some of the laptops I brought from Paris in 2012