The issue of reopening schools has proved to be a hard puzzle for government to solve and with such uncertainty, a number of teachers especially those from private schools have resorted to doing odd jobs to be able to sustain themselves and their families.
45-year-old Jane Nanyonga, a School Director and mathematics teacher at Grammar Nursery and Primary school in Kazinga Kiwatule, is among the many teachers fighting to get life out of the trenches.
Nanyonga is struggling to provide for her four children as her husband who also happens to be a teacher is also on the streets trying to find what to do.
Nanyonga is currently hawking men’s clothes around Kiwatule and Kungu.
In an interview with Matooke Republic, Nanyonga disclosed that she has been a teacher for the past 19 years, and not at any one time did she think about schools being indefinitely closed. It is on such grounds that she never developed any plans of investing anywhere.
In 2020 when schools were first closed, Nanyonga revealed that she had her savings amounting to Shs4 million.
She got Shs3,500,000 and invested it in the poultry business and used the balance for upkeep at home.
Unfortunately, the poultry business went down the drain as birds died due to lack of food.
With now, limited capital at her disposal, the mother of four secured a loan of Shs2 million decided to venture into hawking men’s clothes on advice of a stranger friend.
“The stranger friend told me ‘birds die but clothes do not die’,” Nanyonjo recalled the stranger’s advice.
Nanyonga sells men’s jeans, t-shirts, and crocs. She says she earns about Shs70,000 to Shs80,000 on a good day and Shs 25,000 to Shs40,000 on a bad day.
Being at an advanced age, Nanyonga wants to get a permanent structure where she can sell her items.
“I need like Shs3m capital to set up my own shop. But right now I can not achieve that because I am just surviving,” she said.
Meanwhile, about her school, Nanyonga says the school is still in existence as she set it up on her mother’s land and she’s only required to pay ground rent which the mother pardoned her since schools are closed.