The administrators of Creamville Nursery and Primary School in Buloba, Wakiso district have offered free education to a boy whose mother abandoned at the hospital in 2020.
The school headmistress, Susan Nakiganda made the revelation in Ezra Calvin Kigozi’s second year with the school.
A five-year-old boy, Kigozi was abandoned by her mother at Mukono General Hospital at the beginning of COVID 19 lockdown on May 14, 2020. The boy was by then estimated to be one year old.
Following the hospital’s CCTV footage, a pregnant woman entered Mukono General Hospital carrying a child on her back pretending to have gone for antenatal care treatment.
After staying there for some time, she handed over the boy to one of the caretakers at the hospital on the maternity wing in the guise of going for a short call.
After keeping the boy for some time without her mother coming back for him, the caretaker also left him there, attracting the attention of the health workers as the day was about to close.
One of the staff of Mukono General Hospital, a clinical officer, Ruth Peace Kaweesa said they took the boy to Mukono police where they reported a case of an abandoned child.
But because even at the police there was no one willing to take on the victim in his situation of being so hungry, weak, with some signs of torture, Kaweesa says she volunteered to give him custody and treatment.
“Because we had got the footage of the mother in question and had her pictures published in the media, I thought her mother was going to appear soon or be identified by the public so that she would take her baby, unfortunately, all my hopes were in vain,” she says.
Kaweesa revealed that she therefore went to the Mukono Municipality probation officer Jacqueline Mirembe who formally allowed her to keep the boy with much hope that either the mother or his other relatives would show up and claim him.
Keeping a nameless child was not proper; he was therefore named Ezra Calvin Kigozi because by the time he was got from the hospital, he was not old enough to tell his original name.
At the beginning of last year, when Kigozi saw his fellow children whom he stays with at home going to school, he enthusiastically followed them up. Even though he was not yet ready for school, he followed them up to the school gate. Following the fact that he was not yet a member of the school, he sat outside and kept admiring what the rest of the school children were doing inside the school premises until they entered their classrooms.
Kaweesa says that when they went for him, he resisted, cried and captured the attention of everyone around.
The boy is reported to have done that for some days until when the headteacher of Creamville Nursery and Primary School, Susan Nakiganda asked the elder (Kaweesa) who was going for him what the matter was.
“I told her Kigozi’s story and the headteacher asked me to leave him at school where he had desired to be with the rest of his young ones. To my surprise, the following morning, the headteacher gave Kigozi a full school uniform and the scholastic materials. His life at Creaamville continued for the whole year. He is now concluding his second year at his school,” she narrated.
Because of his age, Kigozi spent the whole of last year in day care, playing with his other friends and learning a few skills. But this year, he has been a very active member of Baby Class who is very promising.
Kaweesa expressed her joy following the fact that Kigozi had been granted a full scholarship to study up to Primary Seven.
“I thank God who is creating opportunities for this innocent boy. I am however asking the mother if she gets this information, let her come up and we get to know about her. If last time she was stuck with the situation, challenged and frustrated, she is understood. Now let her come and at least get to know where her child stays. Kigozi should also get to know her and appreciate that he has a mother,” she urged, adding that, “in any situation, any child deserves the right to parenthood.”
Nakiganda, the Creamville headteacher said after learning about Kigozi’s story, they decided to also offer what they could and that is free education.
“With God’s providence, Kigozi can be the country’s future leader or any other important person. But that can only come to pass if he is helped to have quality education like any other child out there,” she said.
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