The Revival Centre includes a school that provides education up to the end of secondary level for fee paying pupils and for a further 150 disadvantaged and struggling children (or “champions” as Bishop Ivan calls them). The UK Charity Give A Child A Hope supports the champions as a group financially through regular supporter donations made into the fund for the Champions Support Programme. The Revival Centre School comprises of a Nursery, a Primary School and a Grammar School. In keeping with all schools that offer education up to secondary level, the Revival Centre School also provides appropriate dormitory facilities for pupils who need to board during term times, but the Revival Centre is not an orphanage.
The Revival Centre runs in the same manner as all registered schools with boarding facilities in Uganda and is subject to a strict programme of inspection and regulation. Children either board at the school during term time (as is the norm in all schools throughout Africa due to the vast distances involved), or if they have family or safe community links in Matugga town they attend as day pupils and are bused between Matugga and the Revival Centre – in much the same way as is the UK.
GACAH and our partners at the Revival Centre promote a model of care that keeps children who board at the school closely linked to, and involved with, their families and home communities. All children (including the 150 champions) are actively supported to return home to family members or their home community for the school vacations and considerable efforts are made to ensure that the orphaned children on the Champions Support Programme maintain any links that they have with surviving family members or home communities where community members sometimes act as ‘surrogate’ parents. The very small number who have no one, and nowhere to go, become members of Bishop Ivan and Madam Allen’s family group or one of the families of Revival Centre staff for the duration of all vacations.
All donations to the Champions Support Programme go into one fund to the benefit of all the 150 children, and whilst some supporters enjoy a link to a named champion for the purposes of letter exchange, this does not constitute sponsorship of any given child. Supporters donate to the programme as a whole and therefore it is not possible for the Revival Centre to receive any financial gain from recruiting children to the Champions Support Programme who do not meet the criteria of severe disadvantage. Children are often brought to the Centre by extended family members who cannot cope with meeting the needs of an additional child whose parents have sadly died or by the local community who have found the child living on the streets. GACAH’s financial base is finite and therefore 150 children is the maximum we can support at this point in time to ensure appropriate levels of education, care and welfare standards for the champions.
Like all schools with boarding facilities the Revival Centre is subject to the Ugandan Government’s Safeguarding Laws and Procedures. Give A Child A Hope also has it’s own Safeguarding Policies and Procedures which amongst other things covers the procedures attached to maintaining safeguarding when UK visitors volunteer at the Revival Centre.
We welcome your efforts to support the ongoing work of the Revival Centre, to find out how to provide financial support see the links below: