Two Swiss nationals, charity workers Daniel Plattner and Claudia Derungs, the founders of Njuba Children’s Centre in Buwama, Mpigi district have been ordered to leave Uganda, following accusations that activities at a school they run are ‘incompatible with the education standards in the country’.
Under the Njuba Kinderhilfe Uganda, a charity organization founded in Switzerland in 2008, Plattner and Derungs together with Robert Kityo Sengooba, a Ugandan national based in Switzerland, run the centre that is located in Kasubi-Kami village.
According to sources, authorities in Buwama led by the District Police Commander (DPC) recently broke the ‘sad news of orders from above’ to the centre’s managers. The source, hastened to add that the order to leave might be linked to the centre’s affiliation to the proscribed Bridge International Academy (BIAs) schools, which were ordered closed by the High Court in November this year.
Through court sixty three the BIA schools were closed after the organization contested an earlier closure ordered by government in July, following a petition from the Ministry of Education over concerns of poor sanitation, ill-trained teachers and the curriculum followed.
“The government insists we didn’t follow the Ugandan syllabus, that the project taught children only pornographic and sexually-explicit syllabi,” the source said, adding however that: “We have been operating in the country for several years before Bridge (BIAs) came here.”
“We were just affiliated to them and they (BIAs) started their school-related operations in Uganda in 2015, six years after we came here; nothing more,” the source further said, adding they intend to appeal the decision ordering them to leave.
By press time it was not possible to get comment from the authorities over the matter but according to their website, Njuba Kinderhilfe Uganda carries out projects related to ‘school support, external family support; nursery school learning; activities for children and village support’.
However, this year some Ugandan ministers including ethics minister Father Simon Lokodo and a host of MPs accused the BIA schools and some NGOs of promoting homosexuality.
“It is these international schools and some NGO’s operating in Uganda, which are funded by Europeans and the USA that end up teaching bad habits to our children like homosexuality,” one MP said.
