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Mercy School, Makindye
Makindye, Kampala, Uganda
Classrooms, a courtyard, science lessons, sports days, and a children’s choir. Mercy School in Makindye is where sponsored learners sit this term — and where neighbours first hear the house.
Mercy School
Mercy School. A desk in Makindye. A campus in Mityana next.
Mercy For Life Africa runs Mercy School in Makindye, Kampala. Children learn, sing, and write home. The next chapter is a bigger school on five acres in Zigoti Town Council, Mityana.
Two places
Where Mercy School stands — and where it will grow.
The land is ready
Mercy School, Mityana
Zigoti Town Council, Mityana, Uganda
Five acres in Zigoti Town Council, Mityana, wait for a bigger Mercy School. Construction is the plan. A gift marked “Mityana campus” goes toward that building.
In class
A school, not a distant bursary.
Mercy School is how education lives in this house. Fees are paid. Scholastic materials arrive. Teenage mothers walk back to a desk after delivery. The choir rehearses in the same yard the letters are written in.
The children who learn here are known by name. Sponsorship is not a catalogue. It is a term paid, a uniform still worn, a report card held up to the camera. That is Mercy School today.
If you came looking for a school
Mercy School, in plain words.
- What is Mercy School?
- Mercy School is the school of Mercy For Life Africa. Children learn in Makindye, Kampala — classrooms, a courtyard, a choir, and fees paid so orphans and neighbours stay at a desk.
- Where will the new school be built?
- On five acres of land in Zigoti Town Council, Mityana, Uganda. The organisation plans to construct a bigger Mercy School there. The land is ready. Building it is the next mercy.
- How can I help Mercy School?
- Sponsor a child for this term, or give toward the Mityana campus. On the Donate page write “Mercy School” or “Mityana campus” in the note, then WhatsApp or email the house so they know your name.
After you give, WhatsApp the house or write mercyforlifeafrica@gmail.com. Say if the gift is for a child’s fees or for the Mityana campus.
From the field
Classrooms, letters, a courtyard singing.
This is Mercy School as it looks this week in Makindye — and the reason a bigger campus in Mityana matters.
Education
The courtyard, the whole house
Mercy Schools–Makindye on a bright morning: cream uniforms, letters in every hand, staff in the Africa-map shirt, the One Together mural on the wall. This is the school the fees actually pay for.
Video · Education
A peace lesson under iron sheets
At Mercy Schools the chalkboard is Romans 12: live at peace, refuse revenge, respect culture, share a meal, sit with the elders. The children wear the pink shirts. The floor is packed earth. The lesson is the neighbourhood they will inherit.
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Before, and after a desk
Seven children, numbered. Above: a compound, no uniforms. Below: the same seven holding result slips in Mercy School shirts. Sponsorship is not a moment. It is a childhood.
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Letters in the courtyard
Cream uniforms, backpacks, pages in their hands. Sponsorship is a child who can walk into the yard on a weekday and hold the term up to the camera.
Video · Education
The whole room, learning peace
The same Mercy Schools classroom, filmed from the back: pink shirts, packed-earth floor, Romans 12 on the board. A shorter look at the lesson the children will inherit.
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Desks on packed earth
The room is finished enough to learn in: timber walls, a chalkboard, exercise books, a teacher in the white polo leaning over a boy’s page. Mercy School, as it looks this term.
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The same room, the same children
A still from that classroom — teacher in pink, pupils in Mercy Schools shirts, exercise books open on desks that have already seen many terms.
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Letters on the steps
The same morning, closer in. Children hold thank-you pages and drawings on the school steps — red pillars, cream shirts, a girl in yellow at the centre. Sponsorship here has handwriting.
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Favourite subject, on the board
Mercy Schools shirts, open books, a teacher at a chalkboard that says favourite subject. The floor is still earth. The lesson is already happening.
Video · Children’s choir
The courtyard sings
The whole school in the yard — cream shirts, check skirts, papers waving, teachers at the back — singing together under the climbing frame. This is the choir as a neighbourhood, not a stage.
Education
A teacher over two pages
Two boys in pink polos, a teacher in the Mercy Schools shirt, exercise books filling. This is what school fees buy: a person who will stand at the desk until the sum is right.
Children’s choir
In the white robes
Children of the house in choir robes at a church door. They do not only receive fees and food. They give — in rehearsal, in worship, and on a Sunday morning.
Video · Children’s choir
Merry Christmas, all around the world
The children hold lyric sheets and sing: I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas, all around the world. A small boy in a beige jumper keeps the clap. The gospel they preach is a song you can join from Idaho or from the next compound.
Children’s choir
The whole yard, singing
Cream shirts, check skirts, lyric sheets in the air, the climbing frame behind them. The choir is not a stage act. It is the neighbourhood, on its feet, preaching by singing.
Children’s choir
A child, a statue, a quiet minute
A Mercy Schools boy kneels before a small statue of Mary. The choir preaches by singing. Faith in this house also looks like a child who has been given time to pray.
Education
The map on a back, in class
A volunteer sits among secondary students in the official Africa-map shirt — food, hygiene, beds, medical, hope, houses, sanitation, education, dignity — while a teacher works the board.
Children’s choir
A lyric sheet, a voice
One girl, one page, the rest of the choir around her. Rehearsal looks like this: a child who has been given something to sing, and is not ashamed to sing it.
Education
The whole class on the floor
Orange uniforms, number chairs, a wall of handwritten charts. Some lessons happen at desks. Some happen sitting close enough to hear the smallest child.
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The map on a back, in class
A staff member in the official Africa-map shirt stands with a pupil and a mother in a classroom of alphabet charts. Education here is a household, not a department.
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A circle on the porch
Pupils sit in a ring on the Mercy School steps — orange shirts, sandals in a pile, the One Together mural behind them. Assembly here is a porch and a listening seat.
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The same porch, another talk
A teacher on a stool, children on the tiles, shoes off. Mercy School is small enough that a whole class still fits on the steps.
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A fish on a tray, a whole class leaning in
Science in the yard: a teacher in the pink Mercy shirt holds a tilapia on an orange tray while the children crowd close — uniforms, grins, a lesson they will remember with their hands.
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Najjemba Betty, UCE 2025
Najjemba Betty holds her letter to the house after the 2025 Uganda Certificate of Education. Geography an A. A first grade. The child a sponsor kept in class is now a candidate who passed.
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Nassolo Latifah writes home
Nassolo Latifah of Stella Maris College, Nsuube, holds her UCE letter dated 15 February 2026. She thanks the house for the fees that carried her through senior four, and she is aiming at A-level.
Video · Education
Maria writes home
Nalule Maria of Mercy Schools–Makindye holds her end-of-term report and a letter to Ross Hoffman. She is eleven, in Primary Seven, sitting her leaving examinations in November. She thanks him for caring for her since she was small, and says she wants to come and see the family she has only known by faithfulness.
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Nantongo Shanitah, first grade
Nantongo Shanitah holds her own page: a first grade at UCE, a thank-you to the person who paid, and a promise not to let the house down at A-level. That is what a fee, paid on time, grows into.
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Maria, with her letter in her hands
Nalule Maria of Mercy Schools–Makindye holds her report card and the letter to Ross Hoffman. Eleven years old. Primary Seven. The same girl the films are of — still, so a sponsor can see her face.
Video · Education
Thank you for paying my school fees
A pupil of Mugwanya Preparatory School, Kabojja, holds a letter dated 22 August 2026 — Mercy For Life Africa, P.O. Box 34575, Kampala. He looks at the camera and says it plainly: thank you for paying my school fees and taking care of my family.
Video · Education
Ssekitoleko Timothy writes to One Together
Ssekitoleko Timothy of Mercy Schools–Makindye holds his end-of-term result slip and a letter that begins Dear One Together. He thanks them for school fees and for pens. The report is dated 2026. The signature is a heart.
Video · Education
Maria, in the classroom, with her letter
Nalule Maria stands among her classmates holding the report and the letter to Ross Hoffman. You can see the desks, the bags, the room that a sponsorship actually pays for.
Video · Education
The same girl, years on
A short before-and-after: Maria as a small child holding a letter, and Maria now — waving from the school doorway in a white shirt. Sponsorship is not a moment. It is a childhood.
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Mercy School sports day
Four boys in Uganda and club kits stand under black and yellow balloons at a Mercy School sports day. Fees are not only a desk. They are a childhood that still gets to play.
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Crested crane, painted faces
A girl in a flag-cloth dress and a boy in a crested-crane shirt, faces painted in black, yellow and red. National days at Mercy Schools are part of the same mercy that keeps them in class.
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Lunch in the timber classroom
Mercy School children in orange sit at low desks with plates and soda. Fees keep a child at a desk. A meal keeps them there through the afternoon.
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The same table, another day
Plates of posho and stew, bottles of soda, grins. School feeding is not a campaign. It is Tuesday.
Children’s choir
Shepherds at the school door
Mercy School children in white robes and maroon wraps stand with wooden staffs at the office door. The choir does not only sing. At Christmas they become the story they have been rehearsing.
Children’s choir
The nativity, on a church floor
A shepherd, Mary with the child, a zebra in a white sheet — the Mercy For Life Africa Children’s Choir playing the Christmas story under a tree of lights. They preach by singing, and on this night they preach by becoming the gospel.
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The pile in the yard
A knot of children in the compound, every face a grin, a plastic car behind them. This is what the house is for on an ordinary afternoon: children who still get to play.
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A gown at the Mercy Schools door
A Mercy Schools teacher stands in her graduation gown against the office glass — Africa map, blue stars, the house behind her. The children who stay in class grow into the adults who keep the house.
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Gown, porch, the whole school
The same graduate, on the Mercy School porch, buried in children. One Together on the mural. Sandals in a pile. A qualification that still belongs to the courtyard that raised her.
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A bag, a stack of books
Staff put a black backpack and a pile of exercise books into a student’s hands at the Mercy School office. Fees keep a child in class. A bag and a pen keep her there through the term.
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The whole step, new bags
Learners on the Mercy School steps with backpacks, books, and a box of shoes at their feet. This is what a donor’s gift becomes on a Tuesday: a bag a child can walk to class with.
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The boys, with their bags
Staff clap as the boys hold up backpacks and exercise books on the Mercy School porch. The gift is not a speech. It is a bag that will still be on a shoulder in July.
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The whole school, in orange
Mercy School Makindye on a bright morning: orange dresses, visiting friends, the One Together mural, a sign that says education is the greatest treasure. This is the campus the fees pay for — and the reason five acres wait in Mityana.
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Fractions, a visiting hand
A visiting friend writes in an exercise book while two Mercy School girls in orange watch. Naming Fractions is on the wall. Sponsorship here can look like a lesson, not only a transfer.
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Toys against the black gate
Toddlers of the house sit along the gate with a yellow truck and a racing car. Fees and food keep them. Play is how you know a childhood is still being had.