Winterton couple's appeal to aid Ugandan children

ANTHONY CARROLL

20 November 2009

It is a love affair that dates back 50 years and stretches several thousand miles around the globe from a tranquil Norfolk village via generous EDP readers to the heartland of Africa.

From the comfort of their home in Winterton, near Great Yarmouth, Margaret and Bradley Corteen are flying the flag for a fund-raising campaign to help Ugandan children discover the joy of education.

Mr and Mrs Corteen, both in their 80s, are hoping that the plight of the 50 youngsters in Namutamba, 60 miles from Kampala, will move EDP readers to try and raise £8,000 to build them a proper nursery school.

At the moment the children are forced to study in a dilapidated building with no roof, mud floors and no proper toilet facilities.

The drive to fund a new school building is the latest link between Mr and Mrs Corteen and Uganda over the last 50 years.

Margaret moved to Uganda in 1959 to work in a mission hospital and she fell in love with her Swahili language teacher, Bradley, and married the next year.

The couple bought up their three sons and daughter in the 200 acre Namutamba tea estate but they fled as the country became unstable during the reign of Prime Minister Milton Obote who was eventually overthrown by General Idi Amin.

However the kind hearted people of Namutamba have always remained in the thoughts of the Mr and Mrs Corteen, who moved to Winterton in 1990.

In the mid 1990s the couple set up an appeal with the EDP's help to support 12 orphaned children - the Gingo family - and in 2006 they launched a campaign to raise money for a new nursery school for the village.

The 2006 appeal saw generous EDP readers donated £2,000 for the school work - but now another £8,000 is desperately needed to make sure the scheme to breathe fresh life in the Namutamba education system continues.

Mrs Corteen, 83, and her 80-year-old husband have visited Namutamba several times over the last few years and they are in daily contact with the school's governors and head teacher Margaret Mugambe.

She said: “We think of the children of Namutamba as our own family. All the children at the nursery school are like blotting paper - they soak up everything they are taught. They love going to school.

“But the school needs floors, doors, windows, walls as well as furniture, books lighting and water - all things we take for granted over here in schools.”

Anyone wishing to support the fund-raising appeal for the Namutamba nursery school can send a cheque made out to Gingo Number Two Account to Mr and Mrs Corteen, 11 Green Courts, Winterton, Norfolk NR29 4AQ or call 01493 393642.