Bless the Children Ministries (BTCM) works to be the love of Christ to Uganda's orphaned and vulnerable children, equipping them to become authentic, Godly leaders that transform generations. BTCM currently operates Canaan Primary School located in Mabale, Uganda. Over the last 14 years, BTCM has sent children who have graduated from their primary school to over 30 surrounding secondary schools and have consistently encountered the following challenges:
- 6 of every 100 children graduate secondary school in Uganda.
- 24% of students experience sexual abuse in school.
- 60% of teachers are not in the classroom teaching in over half of Uganda’s public schools.
- Our children have significant trauma, developmental delays, and specialized medical needs.
- Schools have inadequate training & resources needed to provide for the unique needs of each child.
- Uganda’s teaching practices don’t adequately prepare children, leaving out important practices like critical thinking and hands-on learning.
- Youth unemployment stands at between 64% and 70%, and about 400,000 youth are released annually to compete for 9,000 available jobs.
- Lack of Christ-Centered Focus: Children have been sent to partner schools that have a religious affiliation but are not integrating Christian values or have personnel walking with Jesus.
- Minimal Access to Children: Many children from our village attend boarding schools 2 to 6 hours away from BTCM. Schools provide limited visitation, usually only 3 times a year, and have denied extra visits. This has prevented children’s families and/or BTCM staff from being able to spend time with children, leaving them without guidance, love, and support during a critical age in their lives during secondary schooling.
After laying a Biblical foundation for 7+ years at BTCM Canaan Primary School, sending children to these schools has left them confused about what beliefs and values to follow.
Project Scope
Bless The Children Ministries (BTCM) has subsequently concluded that by running a secondary school of their own, they would gain 6+ years of influence over a child during a critical time in their faith and development.
With this influence BTCM can rapidly:
- Integrate a Biblical worldview and supplement areas not currently provided in Uganda's standardized education.
- Recruit, disciple, and train staff that align with this vision who will be investing in the students.
- Create synergy with existing BTCM solutions: deeper guardian involvement, and cohesion with Canaan primary school.
- Improve the quality of care by reducing class sizes, specialized tutoring, family-style boarding.
- Multiply our impact by modeling a new approach to secondary education, proving its effectiveness, and
advocating/equipping other schools in the region to follow.
With these details in mind, BTCM desires to further its partnership with EMI that was established in 2013 during the Master Plan project to develop the original Canaan Primary School. EMI has agreed to partner once again to help develop the Secondary School Campus Master Plan. EMI is planning to send a team of architects and engineers to assist in preparation of the conceptual Secondary School Campus Master Plan complete with construction phasing considerations, site works, and supporting infrastructure design for structural, civil and electrical systems. BTCM has expressed interest in taking the role of General Contractor (GC) during construction to help reduce construction costs, and have had the experience in this role when developing the original Canaan Primary School.The Secondary School would be located in close proximity to the existing Primary School site. About 30 acres of land has already been purchased and the land surveyed in preparation for the EMI team project trip in February 2025. The scope of work for the EMI team will involve site investigations such as civil and geotechnical field studies, examination of existing facilities (to get a sense of what has already been built, what is feasible, and how to improve on existing buildings and systems), and conceptual-level architectural design and planning. A preliminary master plan has already been prepared by BTCM, which EMI will use as a starting point during the programming meetings that will be held with BTCM leadership during the project trip in Uganda.
Project Scope:
1. Conceptual Architectural Design. Provide overall schematic dimensioning of building designs (floor plans, elevations and basic renderings) for phased buildings as determined in the architectural programming process. Considerations for building placement, conceptual landscaping, access roads, sidewalks, and various site planning to also be included.
2. Conceptual Civil Design. Provide overall water and wastewater systems for campus master plan on remote site with no municipal connections. Conduct geotechnical soil testing using EMI provided hand-auger borehole tools. Stormwater drainage design for conceptual runoff flows and potential consideration, if any, for site drainage and ditches. Borehole and water pump design for potential groundwater sourcing.
3. Conceptual Electrical Design. Provide overall calculation of electrical loads and phasing of electrical demand for all proposed school campus master plan buildings. Prepare plans detailing routing and sizing of sitewide electrical distribution network and backup power locations. Investigate options for remote power systems such as solar panels.
4. Conceptual Structural Design. Provide conceptual structural designs of proposed campus master plan buildings and provide technical guidance and input to the architectural programming process.
