Donor Impact 2025

Read on to find out about the impact of your donations in 2025!

The Uphill Trust celebrated its 10th birthday at the start of his year and we hired a drone to capture the infrastructure developments of the past decade.

Since this picture was taken in February 2025, a vocational skills classroom has been added to the primary school site, and the staff compost toilet block has been upgraded. It’s all go at Uphill!

The fantastic support we have received over the years from our regular and repeat donors, and fundraisers have helped transform Uphill Junior School from a temporary wooden building on rented land into a well-respected ‘model’ school with quality buildings, qualified teachers and an enviable ethos. Some of you have been with us since the very beginning, and extra big thanks go to you!

The primary school is now complete and we are actively fundraising for a permanent kindergarten teaching block – the last piece of the infrastructure puzzle. It may take a couple of years to raise all the funds that we need, as it’s a big project.

In the meantime the school continues to consolidate the teaching and learning programmes it has been developing over the past decade, along with upskilling and sharing expertise between new staff members and those who have been at Uphill for some  years.

The school is now a certified examination centre for the Primary Leaving Examinations, and, for the very first time, the Primary 7 graduating class sat the examinations in their own school hall. A great achievement and one that makes School Director Elius particularly proud.

Primary 7  Class of 2025, with their teachers. Some of these youngsters joined the school in kindergarten (aged 3-5 years old)

In 2025 our regular donors have supported some of the neediest pupils, helped to fund the Uphill Porridge Club and teachers’ salaries, and provided funds for school infrastructure projects. This core funding is essential for the successful running of the school, and frees up money raised via general fundraising activities for other development projects.

Uphill Trust Chairman with the Uphill Junior School Director outside the school hall

UPHILL PORRIDGE CLUB

A daily mug of soya/maize porridge for every child in the school continues to be very popular with pupils and their parents.

The porridge project cost £1,300 per term in 2025 and was funded by a combination of regular and one-off donations, along with a fundraising balance carried over from the previous year. We have sufficient funds to cover the cost of the project in full for 2026, but will need to start fundraising again  for 2027 and beyond.

Porridge time in Baby class

PUPIL SUPPORT FUND

Ten regular donors, including 2 primary schools in England, supported 22 children at Uphill Junior School this year (10 girls and 12 boys). Three of this group took the Primary Leaving Examinations in November and have said farewell to their Uphill school family. There are quite a few deserving children on the waiting list, so those who have left will be replaced, as funds allow, in 2026.

Some of the Uphill pupils our donors helped to support in 2025

SCHOOL BUILD FUND

2025 saw the completion of the staff sanitation block (finally!) and the successful construction of a vocational skills classroom on the Uphill school site. The staff block has compost toilets, with, at the request of the staff, smaller versions for the younger children.

The staff sanitation block is now in use and has showers and a sink with running water, much to the delight of the teachers and their families!

Vocational skills classroom, with some of the newly arrived tools from the UK

TEACHER SALARY FUND

The Uphill teachers continue to throw themselves into curricular and extra-curricular activities, including teaching themselves IT skills and training to become leaders for the new Girl Guiding group at the school.

The trust pays the monthly salaries for the teachers, and now also the school nurse, and this is our biggest core cost. In 2025 the salary bill came to £16,467 (around £82 per month per class teacher) and was covered by regular and one-off donations, gift aid receipts and fundraising activities. Additional funding will be needed to continue to cover salaries in 2026.

You are all helping to make such a difference to children’s lives in Iruhuura, rural western Uganda

THANK YOU FROM EVERYONE IN THE UPHILL SCHOOL COMMUNITY!

You can read more about our work and finances in 2025 in our Annual Report

Tags: donor impact 2025, how we helped Uphill Junior School in 2025, impact of the uphill trust's work in 2025