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A new chapter for Nyagakenke Village Primary School
In February, we celebrated the launch of the new Nyagakenke Village Primary School, built in partnership with That Gorilla Brand.
The school sits just minutes from the entrance to Mgahinga National Park, on the border of Uganda, Rwanda and the DRC, beneath the volcanic slopes that form one of the most important habitats for mountain gorillas.
Until now, learning conditions were extremely difficult. The buildings struggled to support the children who relied on them. Now the school can offer children a more secure foundation for the future. Children who once sat on mud floors with no windows now have proper classrooms with concrete floors, glass windows and solid roofing. There is solar power, fresh water on site and proper desks to learn at.
In total, three new buildings have been constructed, creating seven classrooms and five toilet blocks. The school now has capacity for 600 children in this densely populated area. At the opening, the Bishop of Kisoro described Nyagakenke as the best school in the region.
But the importance of this school reaches far beyond education alone.
Equipping the next generation
Nyagakenke is one of 27 schools involved in our Children for Sustainable Conservation programme, which works on a simple idea: when children understand and benefit from conservation, entire communities begin to protect wildlife.
As part of this work, pupils help remove litter, especially plastics left by tourism and other activity around the national park. Students have also taken part in large scale reforestation on the slopes of Muhavura after landslides caused by loss of tree cover. They plant fruit trees including guava and avocado, helping restore the landscape while improving school nutrition. Conservation becomes a shared family effort rather than something imposed from outside.
The aim reaches beyond environmental protection, becoming about changing opportunity. Better education raises literacy, which opens alternatives to illegal hunting and unsustainable resource use. As awareness grows, attitudes towards the national park and its biodiversity improve, and pressure on mountain gorillas reduces. Over time the school becomes a centre for both learning and local development.
What this new school makes possible
With space for 600 pupils, the school can now reach many more children. More children staying in school means greater exposure to conservation.
Parents are drawn in through their children, and communities become easier to mobilise around protecting the park. As education levels rise and livelihoods diversify, reliance on poaching inevitably falls. Step by step, conservation and development reinforce each other.
A shared effort
This school builds on wider work in the region, including the Bwindi Community Water Project, which has already brought clean water, sanitation and solar power to more than 15,000 people living beside gorilla habitat. Together with That Gorilla Brand, we will continue to support communities and wildlife in the region.
Standing in the new classrooms, you can feel that change already beginning. Children have space, teachers have tools, and families have renewed confidence in what education can offer.
We are deeply grateful to That Gorilla Brand for making this possible. Nyagakenke is a huge milestone, and a vital investment in children’s education, community upliftment and the future of mountain gorillas
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