St. Matia Mulumba

“We have hidden your kindness in our hearts so that we do not forget it.” - Father Charles

Father Charles Lugenda joined the pastoral staff at St. Michael the Archangel Parish from May 2007 to July 2008 while on sabbatical leave from St. Matia Mulumba in Mityana, Uganda. He often celebrated Mass at Green Hope HS, then a station of St. Michael Parish and the future Mother Teresa Parish.

Through this relationship, we saw a beautiful opportunity to share our blessings with his faithful Christian community in need of many necessities.

In November 2008, we held our first campaign for St. Matia Mulumba Parish to assist the children with tuition and school supplies. The community embraced the opportunity to help and has been generously enriching the lives of our Ugandan friends ever since.

Father Charles had the opportunity to visit our parish several times since his sabbatical and was a guest priest in 2013 and 2014. In June 2016, several parishioners from Mother Teresa Parish were honored guests at St. Matia Mulumba’s Jubilee Anniversary celebration.

St. Matia Mulumba has been a Mission of Our Lady of Fatima Church, Mubende, since 1925. It became a parish with the building of the current church in 1966. From 1925-1984 it was evangelized by the Missionaries of Africa (White Fathers). The diocesan priests took over the administration of the parish in 1984. The parish patron saint was one of the Uganda Martyrs. 

Father Charles has been the pastor of St. Matia Mulumba since 2008. He is their sixth pastor. St. Matia Mulumba is named after one of the Uganda Martyrs.

The parish is 45 miles west of the capital city of Kampala and is in the rural district of Kassanda. According to the 2019 statistics, the parish has a population of 26,838. Out of these, 14,032 are Roman Catholics and live in 23 sub-parishes.

Four priests travel to the rural villages to say Mass and provide pastoral care to the people, seeing them monthly except for the main substation. The farthest sub-parish is eighteen miles from the main church of St. Matia Mulumba. It takes about one and a half hours by car due to the rugged rural roads.

Parishioners are mostly peasant farmers. The average weekly collection of St. Matia Mulumba and the sub-parishes is equivalent to $120.00. However, some families offer foodstuffs instead of cash.

Schools have been closed for nearly two years during the pandemic, opening in January 2022. There are approximately 4,700 students enrolled in the twelve parish schools (11 elementary and one high school).

School Supplies for one year (notebooks, pens, pencils, and pencil sharpeners)

• $10 – One student 
• $50 – Five students 
• $100 – Ten students

Chalk for teachers. On average, 90 boxes of chalk are needed per school per year.

• $40 – 30 boxes of chalk 
• $120 – 90 boxes of chalk 

School Lunches – one cup of porridge made from maize flour, sugar, and water and prepared in a large pot over firewood

• $30 – One student’s school lunch for 100 days
• $60 – One student’s school lunch for 200 days

In September 2022, the Support St. Matia Mulumba Board allocated $3,000 for St. Matia school lunches through the generous donations received from the Mother Teresa community. As a result, 926 students received lunches.

Any donation amount is never inconsequential. It brightens up the pupil's day and gives hope. It is meaningful and has a life-giving effect. Bless you, abundantly for your compassion. Donate another school lunch here.

Please see the end-of-project report from Father Charles. 

Thank you for your generosity and support.

The recent completion of the project to build a Teachers’ House for St. Matia Mulumba piqued our curiosity about what it’s like to be a teacher in Uganda. How do these educators accomplish their mission with limited resources, no textbooks, computers, overhead projectors, electricity, or online learning?

Father Charles Lugenda provided this insight into the teaching profession.

Hiring process and recruitment

The Ministry of Education, through the local districts, appoints teachers in our respective schools. If a school needs more teachers, these are hired by both the School Management Committee and the Parents Association of the School. These committees do the vetting and interviews of the applicants, and they are responsible for paying the hired teachers. These teachers are normally on contract.

Teacher’s education and qualifications

Headteachers in primary (grade) schools must be holders of a Bachelor’s degree in education. Other teachers in primary schools hold a Diploma in Education and/or a Grade III-V Certificate. The new government policy now requires all teachers to be holders of a Bachelor’s degree in education. There are national teachers training colleges in the country.

Did teachers get paid during the Covid-19 shutdown?

Yes. It was reported that countrywide some teachers left the teaching profession for other employment during the shutdown. In our parish schools, all teachers have returned.

Do you have an administrative team over the teachers?

The government has school inspectors. All schools have school management committees and a parents’ association, which offers supervisory support to teachers. These two committees can advise the district to have a teacher transferred or dismissed from a school.

Catholics, Protestants, and Moslems insist on having the Christian or Moslem faith be mandatory, taught, and practiced in their respective schools.

On the anniversary of his ordination on July 16, Father Charles Lugenda blessed the new teachers’ house for St. Matia Mulumba Parish in Uganda, built through the generosity of the Mother Teresa Community.

It was a joyous celebration on the anniversary of Father Charles’ ordination to the priesthood 44 years ago. Eight teachers from the school will occupy the house.

From the blessing of the ground to the house’s completion, the teachers of St. Matia Mulumba say, “Thank you” for your generosity.

The Support St. Matia Mulumba Board is looking for members to join the planning and oversight of projects such as this at our sister parish.

The Board meets 6-8 times a year. Please email [email protected] to inquire.

The St. Matia Mulumba Nurses’ House on the grounds of the parish Health Center houses eight nurses, a “welcome blessing” for the parish and the surrounding community.

The house is dedicated “in loving thanksgiving of the services in Kiganda Parish by the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (1972-2022)” and was blessed by Fr. Charles on Sunday, June 25, 2023. It was built as a collaborative effort between Mother Teresa Church and the Dominican Sisters of San Rafael, Calif., to provide housing for the parish health center employees. 

Through the Mother Teresa Community’s generous support, St. Matia raised funds to build a much-needed house for the parish’s health center staff, mainly the nurses. This will bring stability and continuity of care to the community.

Information about the nurse’s house:

1. Rooms for eight nurses.
2. Store/pantry attached to each room
3. Electricity and plumbing (a sink in each room).
4. Common water tap to the national water. Tanks will be bought to harvest rainwater, also.
5. There’s no need for a kitchen since nurses use charcoal or kerosene stoves for cooking. They place these stoves on the veranda to cook.
6. The nurses share a common pit latrine (toilet) and bathrooms.

Thank you for generously helping us raise the roof on this new building to support the health and well-being of St. Matia. You are helping to build St. Matia’s infrastructure.