By Nyakecho Mary
Every year on June 16th, the continent comes together to celebrate the Day of the African Child, honouring the youth of Soweto who marched for their right to education in 1976. This year, the African Union has turned its spotlight toward an urgent fundamental right with the theme: “Ensuring Universal Access to Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) for Every Child in Africa.”
Across Uganda, schools celebrate new boreholes, latrines, and handwashing stations. But on Lolwe Island (also known as Dolwe) situated in the eastern part of Uganda, covering an area of 25 square kilometers out in the Namayingo District on Lake Victoria, this year’s theme collides with a harsh geographic and structural reality. For the children of Lolwe, water is everywhere, yet safe sanitation is a struggle, and secondary education is entirely non-existent. On this day, our young people face a dual crisis of infrastructure, asking a heavy question:
“How can we realize our right to health, clean sanitation, and safety when our education hits a dead end at Primary level?”
The lack of a single secondary school on the island shatters the rights of these brilliant children to both education and basic dignity, rendering the ambitious promises of national development frameworks a distant myth for island communities.
When water is everywhere, but opportunity is minimal
Lolwe Island is a place of breathtaking contrasts. It is one of Uganda’s most beautiful islands, characterized by massive granite rocks, boulders, and bustling landing sites alive with the fish trade. Approximately 15,000 people call this island home. According to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) 2025 Baseline Education Census, the island has a robust population of about 2,500 school-going children, yet the number of secondary schools on the island is exactly zero.
When a child finishes Primary Seven (P.7) at institutions like Kadenge Primary School, their pathway to a secure future is immediately cut off. To continue education, these thousands of children must board the MV Sigulu or, more commonly, crowd into a wooden canoe to travel three to four hours across the unpredictable, open waters of Lake Victoria to mainland Namayingo or neighbouring districts.
This is where the transition from primary school intersects directly with this year’s WASH theme and Uganda’s supreme law. Under Article 30 of the 1995 Constitution of Uganda, education is a fundamental right for all citizens. Furthermore, the state is mandated under Objective XXI of the National Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy to take practical measures to ensure clean and safe water for all. On Lolwe, both of these mandates are systematically broken.
Moreover, by completely ignoring the secondary education deficit on the island, Uganda stands in direct violation of regional treaty obligations. Specifically, Article 11(3)(b) of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC) explicitly asks state parties to “encourage the development of secondary education in its different forms and to progressively make it free and accessible to all.” For the youth of Lolwe Island, secondary education is neither free nor accessible, but physically absent.
For the few families who scratch their pockets to send their children to the mainland, boarding schools are financially out of reach. Instead, they rent small, unsupervised rooms for their adolescent children near mainland day schools. In these settlements, adolescents, especially girls, are exposed to severe water and housing insecurities. Without parental guidance or safe, private sanitation facilities, managing menstrual hygiene becomes a nightmare, leaving them highly vulnerable to sexual exploitation in exchange for basic necessities like sanitary pads or clean water.
A crisis of social development & SRHR
When evaluated under the international human rights framework of AAAQ (Availability, Accessibility, Acceptability, and Quality), Lolwe Island is experiencing a systemic drought. Without a physical secondary school building to anchor them, approximately 2,500 children are left behind without clean school toilets or safe water points. This triggers a dangerous chain of human rights violations that directly defy regional treaties like the ACRWC.
Beyond physical dangers, the total absence of secondary education inflicts severe, irreversible damage on the children’s social development. Adolescence is a critical developmental window for building emotional regulation, long-term goal setting, and critical thinking. When a child’s academic journey stops at age 13, their world shrinks. Without a structured school environment, they are deprived of positive peer socialization and mentorship that transforms teenagers into active civic participants.
Furthermore, without secondary education, girls face heightened risks of teenage pregnancy and early, forced marriages. By failing to provide a safe educational environment, the state falls short of its protective custody duties under Article 27 of the ACRWC which protects them from sexual abuse. Socially, these girls are stripped of their agency, transitioning instantly from children to isolated, and burdened young mothers before they have even processed their own childhood.
The NDP IV deficit
The structural neglect of Lolwe Island stands in stark, contradictory contrast to Uganda’s current national planning blueprints. The government is currently implementing its Fourth National Development Plan (NDP IV, 2025/26-2029/30), which anchors the country’s transition toward Vision 2040 and aims for a 10-fold economic expansion.
A foundational pillar of the NDP IV is Human Capital Development, which explicitly targets increasing the average years of education and expanding access to Universal Secondary Education (USE) to cultivate a highly competitive, skilled workforce. The NDP IV explicitly recognizes that keeping teenagers, especially girls in school directly drives down demographic dependency ratios, reduces teenage pregnancies, and secures household wealth creation.
Furthermore, under the newly launched Uganda Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene National Adaptation Plan (WASH NAP 2026-2030), the Ministry of Water and Environment has explicitly recognized that resilient WASH infrastructure in schools is a primary determinant for the attendance and retention of adolescent girls.
By leaving Lolwe Island entirely blank on the secondary education map despite a baseline of 2,500 primary school-level learners, the government is defaulting on its own planning targets. Lolwe functions as a distinct sub-county. According to the long-standing Universal Post Primary Education and Training (UPPET) policy of 2007, every sub-county in Uganda must have at least one government grant-aided secondary school. On Lolwe, this policy remains a broken promise.
The indivisibility of rights
Human rights are indivisible: you cannot fulfill a child’s right to health and sanitation if you deny them the physical classroom where those rights are actualized and protected.
Civil society and local community efforts can only go so far when structural infrastructure is entirely missing. We cannot completely protect an adolescent from early vulnerabilities if their academic journey is put to a stop at the age of 13 or 14 simply because of their geographical location.
A call to action
The future of Lolwe Island is slowly brightening. With the arrival of a hybrid solar grid, local commerce is thriving and economic potential is awakening. However, for true transformation to take effect, our social sectors must catch up. It is time for Education and WASH to align with Uganda’s national aspirations under the NDP IV.
This Day of the African Child, we urge the Ministry of Education and Sports and the Ministry of Water and Environment to turn their eyes to Lake Victoria and take immediate action. Establishing a government grant-aided secondary school on Lolwe Island is no longer just a developmental request, but an enforceable constitutional duty and a vital public health priority.
Let us ensure that the children of Lolwe can wash their hands in safety, develop their minds in dignity, and step into a secondary classroom right on their own island.
Let us not leave the African Child of Lolwe stranded at the shoreline.
The writer is a Project Officer at Center for Health, Human Rights and Development (CEHURD).