How Adoa built a chain of schools using loans

Ms Hellen Adoa Abeku

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But more touching Adoa has had tough sacrifices as she tries to find time to balance between work and her family

In 1991 rebels raided Kyere Market making off with the little money that Hellen Adoa Abeku had saved through her uncle.
The robbery although heartbreaking did not break Adoa’s spirit but moulded her into the woman that the world needed to achieve anything.
From a scared background, Adoa has lit up parts of eastern Uganda, especially Soroti and Serere districts building a mosaic of schools.
The third born of nine in a family of seven boys and two girls, Adoa has built four schools including Halcyon High School, Teso Boarding Primary School, Toto Adoa Primary School and New York Primary School.
Adoa, who is pursuing a Masters in local government and human rights at Uganda Martyrs University, is a poor child education advocate, whose inspiration is derived from the need to lend a hand to the underprivileged child.
The struggle to raise school fees
While growing up, Adoa, just like any other needy child tilled teachers’ gardens as she search for opportunities that would put her through school.
During holidays she would walk her village selling pancakes. She would also mould pots to raise money that would supplement on her parents meagre savings derived from some informal businesses.
Her father’s business of buying produce had been destroyed by a raid of Uganda People’s Army (UPA) in Teso.
“Ferrying clay from the swamp to make pots was not easy for a girl like me but given the circumstances I could not give up,” she says. “I feared that if I stopped school or being busy I would be married off. So I was determined to succeed,” she adds.
And this, Adoa reasons prompted her to support financially challenged children through Teso Halcyon Child Sponsorship Scheme with a view of renewing their hope by attaining education.
To Adoa, there is need for government to come up with serious measures to reduce the high rate of girl-child dropout, especially in the Teso sub-region.

How she built the schools
Adoa investment in schools started in 2001 after she returned from the United Kingdom where she had gone to study a Diploma in Education Management.
Her first school, Halcyon High School was built in 2001on a piece of land that she had bought in Asuret Sub-county in Soroti District.
Later she built Teso Boarding Primary School in 2006, Toto Adoa in 2010 and New York Primary School in Serere District.
All these schools, according to Adoa were offset by loans and assistance from some friends she had met in the UK.
“I met some friends who I had studied with in my A Level. They gave me a start-up capital of 10,000 Pounds (now about Shs43m).
By then, a pound was only Shs2,300 so that was Shs23m then, which I used to buy land. I built a one block building. And this formed the core of the current school montage that I currently have,” Adoa shares.
“We began with 84 students, who were mostly relatives and friends children. But even then we never had sufficient facilities but had to make do with the little ones that we had.”
“It was hard at the beginning but through encouragement from my friends I pushed on,” she says.
From the little that some children would pay as school fees they would buy food, pay teachers as well as running the day-to-day operations.
However, in 2003 she approached Centenary Bank from where she acquired a loan as it had become hard to run the school without money.
She also planned to use some of the money to expand the school.
From her first borrowing of Shs10m her loan portfolio subsequently grew to Shs1b as she went through years of expansion and adjustments.
“I have grown on loans and one of my key lessons is put the money to its intended use and don’t attempt to keep it,” she says.
She says dealing with banks has taught her lessons and the desire to train people who can cement her relationship with the industry.
And for this, Adoa says she has made sure that some of her first graduates, who have benefited from her scholarship, are now working in banks and some are employed as accounts in different organisations.
The schools have a combined population of more 4,000 students.

The trials
Adoa’s success as seen on the surface has not been without challenges. For instance, she says one of her biggest challenge is the irregular fees payment.
“Most parents don’t pay on time and some don’t pay at all. So you find that you have to lobby for money elsewhere to offset debts as well as buying supplies,” she says.
This, she adds has been worsened by the ever escalating poverty in the region whereby “we end up with large numbers of children that we just assist because their parents cannot afford to put them through school”.
Similarly, Adoa says the unstable food prices have become a challenge to them, which has driven their cost of operation to unimaginable levels.
Additionally, teacher retention is a challenge as her schools on average lose about five teachers every term.
But more touching Adoa has had tough sacrifices as she tries to find time to balance between work and her family.
“Sincerely, sometimes I feel guilty because virtually I have little time for my family,” she says.

Her future plans
In 10 years Adoa plans to push her school through in order to be among the best schools in Uganda.
This, she plans to do it through advocacy as well as leveraging available government resources to uplift the standards of education in the Teso sub-region.
More importantly, Adoa says she is keen to serve the people of Teso as a politician with a view of using the resources that come with the job to reach the local community.
“I believe with a political role and the benefits that come with it. I can afford to move across the region to attend to people than it is currently,” she says.
“Some people have approached me asking me to abandon the idea to get into politics but I think I will be cheating myself because the desire inside me to serve people keeps burning.
In the 2011, Adoa lost out to current Serere Woman MP, Alice Alaso but is determined to stand again in 2016.
“I cannot enslave my desires,” she says.