WTA@10

Planning a full day's celebration at WTA (with food, entertainment, speeches - even more food to allow for parents, former students, the whole school & staff) is a huge task in itself. Given all that, no one had ANY idea how many would actually come. The guesstimate was for around 2000 people...

But it would be naive to overlook the unwritten rule that very many Lukomera residents would probably also invite themselves, on the basis that, after all, "WTA is part of us".

After many weeks of preparations, rehearsals, budgeting, rebudgeting and discussions of marquees, appropriate quantities of rice, matooke and meat, D Day finally approached. The weekend's celebrations began with a big march on the Friday. In the heat of the day, the WTA community walked from this 'new' site at Lukomera back to Katikamu, close to the school's first 'old site' location. Accompanied by a loud marching band, two police escorts, the school ambulance plus our support car, the march was a riot of colour and noise right down the middle of the main road (equivalent of the A1) and back again. For once, we were the cause, not the victims of the lengthy traffic tailbacks. 

About the actual Celebration Day on Saturday October 8th, it is hard to do it justice in mere words & photos, so hopefully there will be a film to watch soon. In short, there was dancing, singing, drama, prayers, comedy, sketches, speeches, thanks, presentations, a guest speaker and.... finally lunch, around 6pm. A steady stream of visitors continued to pour in all morning and by midday the site was at maximum capacity, yet still they continued to arrive, everyone looking so smart and definitely in 'party mode'. In the end it was estimated that the final number was between 2200-2500 people. Thats a lot of food!

Perhaps THE most memorable, most astonishing and most fascinating part of the day was seeing a large number of 'old students' coming back to share in this special day - some of them we hadn't seen since they left 10 years ago. A few of them had even started school with Charles & Patrick on the old site. What stories they all share! The common themes were 'WTA made me', 'WTA was different', 'WTA helped me to change and grow', 'WTA has enabled me to do what I am doing now'. They returned last week as nurses, radiographers, business owners, parents, IT specialists, community leaders, graduates, students, singers, communicators, engineers, Masters' students, musicians, entrepreneurs, NGO workers and regular, hardworking members of their communities. Yet they represent a small fraction of WTA students in Uganda. Such a tribute to Charles' original vision and dream.

Charles and Benard shared many memories of WTA's story and achievements over the years and they both kindly paid tribute to ServeDirect's longterm partnership, including the emergency support for WTA and the community during the pandemic, enabling WTA to stay afloat during the two year school closure.

In our own speeches, we spoke about the unique partnership between ServeDirect and WTA, encouraging all parents to play their unique role in supporting their children. Now that WTA has re-established itself, ServeDirect will now refocus on supporting with facilities, infrastructure and resources, as before.

A very long day: exciting, inspiring, memorable and entertaining and ....... rather tiring, of course. 

Already someone has mentioned 'WTA@20'; that will definitely need a much bigger budget and allow for even more people....!

NB. Those with sharp eyes & even sharper memories will instantly know that this title is technically wrong. WTA is actually 17 years old, but the celebration milestone represented the move to this new site in Lukomera in 2011. However the official ten-year celebrations were delayed due to lockdown and school closure, hence the revised date for 2022!