Re:National day celebrations.

17th May is known world wide by all Norwegians as the distinct day to comemorate the constitutionalism of the country for nearly 2 centuries todate. Celebrations are organised in micro communities and all people from newly born to great great grand parents of over 90 years of age are party to.
All houses have the national flag flying by the front and patriotism is inculcated in the children at a tender age. All people from different walks of life are joined together by a national cause with out any manifestations of political differences and the well prepared adorn the national outfit or the best wear available.
This year as the king was out of his castle with the royals waving to members of the public in Oslo the prime minister was in Spain celebrating with Norwegians who had gone for vacation.
This also marks the end of upper secondary school finalists celebrations and its the only time they wear something in semblace of a uniform in the national colours.
A lot is usually fixed on the agenda and activities range from matching (childrens parade), prayers, speeches at local level (in some cases led by children), paying tribute to the dead, games in the evening (e.g football) and house hold celebrations as a climax.

Re:Visit to Re Kommune (Tonsberg)

From Wednesday 6th May 2009 to Sunday 10th May 2009 we re-united with fellow country men Henry Kabiriri and Saidi Bright hailing from Katwe municipality in the western part of Uganda. These nationals are representing a partnership between their motherland and Re-community in Vestfold county.

In Re, we visited all the schools in the Kommune ranging from Barne Skole (Primary), Ungdom Skole (Lower secondary) and Videreagende (upper secondary). The students were hospitable and we enjoyed each others company. We joined an education trip with the Laurelstoppen Barne skole in which they were shown around their community and among the places visited included churches, farms, an inactive volcano (glacier), a camping site and the historical sites in world war II. Well this sounds crazy but we visited part of the coast line separating Norway, Denmark and Sweden and the beach is known by the name "end of the world" with strong exhilarating breeze andwaves.

FK- Vestfold conference

On the 6th May 2009 Fredskorpset organized a conference in Vestfold county (Brunstad conference hall). The event was to provide inspiration to the development of networks and increased strategic collaboration between institutions and individuals. The conference was also to provide the public, institutions and other interested parties the opportunity to meet key players in teaching and education sectors, both from Norway and abroad. A number of topics in relation to education were discussed. Geoffrey was invited as a guest speaker and had to discuss the topic – “How can exchange from the south improve Norwegian Institutions?” The conference was spiced up with cultural music and dances performed by FK participants from Fredrikstad Cultural School.

Vennskap Nord/Sør - Stord Conference

On the morning of 24th April 2008 we took a ferry to Stord - an island in the south of Bergen to attend a conference about the North/ South friendship (Vennskap Nord/ Sør) in Norsk. One issue on the agenda was the commemoration of 10 years of partnership between Comalapa- a municipality in Guatemala and Stord. Other issues regarding exchange programmes between the North and the south were discussed. A number of small group workshops were held in which we actively participated.

A Visit to Bergen

On the 22nd April 2009 was the day for long awaited trip to the western coast. This trip included a tour of Bergen, Norway’s biggest town next to Oslo. Among the places visited included the University of Bergen, the King’s Castle, Bryggens museum which is based on the findings of the archeological excavations of Bryggen between 1955 and 1972. The foundations of the oldest buildings in Bergen from the 12th century can be seen here and many other pieces of artifact. Also interesting was the funicular trip (cable train) from the middle of the city to a magnificent mountain scenery.

Trip to copenhagen-Denmark.

Wednesday 17Th March was the D day. Filled with excitement and anxiety of what the hotel on sea had in stock for us, our appetite was as high as that of a 10 year old in Nakasongola district on 25Th Dec annually. Ms crown of Scandinavia (ship) has a capacity of 2000 people full board, 3 restaurants, 2 recreational centres, length 170.9m, width28.2m, car carrier of up 450 vehicles and covers 509km from Copenhagen to Oslo over night.As we approached Copenhagen we further appreciated the technological innovation of a tunnel (road) constructed beneath the sea and protruding as a bridge over the sea linking Denmark to Sweden. While on board we had an evaluation of the period so far spent at Rjukan(fk project).We had the privilege of witnessing the change of guards at the Queen's castle. The entire City is nearly surrounded by water.

Co-curricular activities.

As a passionate sports personality i will always reminisce the opportunity of various seasons in Norge. I had to pick up a new skill in the field of sports. You must all be wondering whether i touched the sky but in one way yes and in the other way i was far from the attempt.The sport is skiing both down hill and cross country.At the sight of somebody negotiating successive sharp bends it appears the easiest of sports but maintaining the centre of gravity in stability is always a puzzle as a baby learning to take a first step. I was immediately rushed to the excuse of "but there is no snow in Uganda", better still, skiing is meant for the Norwegians who are born with skis on the feet and at best skiing was not one of my goals. Am sure somebody out there must be fascinated and left in amusement.I will be better with training after all failure is not having the courage to try. Above all i practised some of the theories i learnt in Physics.

Emulate Norway's students' Career Guidance

The Norwegian education system provides a number of programmes as a way to create awareness to students of the available career opportunities especially at university level. Among them include big exhibitions by local and international universities from UnitedKingdom and USA. Such exhibitions are arranged in major towns around Norway and students from upper secondary schools visit the different university stalls to get first hand information. This particular one we visited with Rjukan Vgs 3rd year academic students was arranged in Oslo exbihition hall. Another good arrangement is when universities arrange open days to the public to show and advertise the courses they offer. Students are given an opportunity to attend short lessons scheduled between 30 to 45 minutes in the different faculties. On the 5th March 2009 we and second year academic students headed by the carrier master of Rjukan Vgs- Tom Nilsen and Ingrid Kjelsnes attended the Open day of Oslo university. If any student wished to join Oslo university after secondary, Iam sure there was no better career guidance than what they had that day.

A visit to Atrå Primary School.

On the 26th February 2009 we were invited to Atrå ( Barne skole) Primary School to have a talk to students about Uganda. Basing on the age of the students the following topics were discussed:

• Disciplining children in a Ugandan home.
• Politics in Uganda,
• School system in Uganda.
• Brief analysis of cultural norms.

To make the teaching more interesting we showed some videos of Uganda's traditional foods, artcraft and dances. We crowned the - day by teaching the students a Kiganda traditional dance.

A TRIP TO RØRA - TRONDHEIM

On the 12th February we took a trip to Trondheim, North of Norway to visit Sund Folkehøgskole. Folkehøg is a Nordic phenomenon and such schools are focused at making students to have a global understanding of many aspects and life skills training in various fields. Students enroll for the Folkehøgskole after Videregående (upper secondary school) and spend one year before joining university.
Sund Folkehøgskole has a capacity of 110 of fulltime students enrolled at the age of 18years.
Subjects offered in the school include Development studies, Environment, Football, Sports, Jazz music, World music and Art & photography.
The school also hosts Fredskorpset youth participants from Universities in India and Guatemala who take lessons at the school and visit other schools in the community.
Our visit to the school was mainly intended to share professional knowledge and cultural values in Uganda and Norway.
On the 14th February 2008, we conducted a seminar to students at the school in which we discussed Uganda’s Strengths and Challenges.
Topics discussed included:
History Of Uganda
Leadership
Society and Cultural Norms
Education System in Uganda
HIV and AIDS awareness in Uganda
According to the evaluation of the whole discussion, students learnt a lot from Uganda’s cultural values and norms and we also learnt from their responses.
The Jazz class performed to us some of the music they learnt during their recent visit to Gambia.
We learnt quite a lot from this visit among which we greatly appreciated the students' active involvement in the daily work at school including working with the kitchen staff and cleaning their living room.
Students behave responsibly despite being a mixed-sex school and respect time for the different schedules in school.
The school has a practice of inducting one or two students after their academic year to work as part of the school staff and be in charge of others, this is a very good practice in the school’s training. We thank Sund Folkehøgskole (Inger Lise) for inviting us and Ingrid Kjelsnes who made it possible for us to travel.