Hard work, resilience coupled with a ‘Never say Die’ attitude finally brought a smile to pupils, parents and management of Kitante Primary School in Kampala.
For all their wits, the government aided school was rewarded with a 37-seater school bus after they emerged best in the Blue Band Schools Puzzle Challenge.
The objective of the campaign that started in December 2013 was to educate consumers and children on optimal nutrition, as well as the importance of spreading Blue Band on every slice of bread as it contains fats and vitamins that kids need to grow.
A unique 500 piece puzzle entirely devoted to nutrition was distributed to over 700 schools countrywide. Schools competed to complete the highest number of puzzles through their students collecting puzzle tokens which were made available under the label lid of special promotional packs of Blue Band for parents to purchase. Each child was also issued with an information booklet with the brand’s call to action and nutritional information.
The National Grand Prize of a 37- seater school bus was at stake for the school that collected the most tokens and Kitante Priamry School from Kampala emerged top having collected at total of 29,900 tokens.
Speaking during the handover of the bus valued at UGX 150 million, Isaac Lutwama Nsubuga, the Customer Marketing Manager at Unilever Uganda said that they are fully committed towards empowering families with knowledge to enable them make informed nutritional decisions.
“Today, we see an interesting trend where by children continuously influence their feeding habits. So by reaching out to children in a fun and engaging platform such as this, we believe that families will increasingly make informed nutrition decisions,” he said.
He added; “I would like to congratulate the management and staff of Kitante Primary School for the effort they put into this campaign. We believe this bus will ease your field trips.”
Quoting their school motto; ‘The struggle continues for the great horizons’, Mrs. Jane Ssemugoma the Head teacher, Kitante Primary School said that the efforts the parents and teachers put into the campaign enabled the school to knick the ultimate prize.
“We were well aware that we were competing against so many schools from all over Uganda. As a school, we decided to boost the campaign by injecting UGX 1 million that was used for buying Blue band for our pupils. We encouraged every pupil to participate and we are lucky that we have numbers here,” she said.
She showed her appreciation to Unilever for coming through with the promise adding that they will use the bus to enable the pupils get more exposure and knowledge through field trips.
Florence Muhumuza Kyoshabire, the Supervisor Education Services at Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) who represented the Executive Director, Jennifer Musisi said that Blue Band has continued to be the leading magarine because it recognizes the importance of nutrition especially amongst children.
“How many companies do we have out there? Very many. Only a few of them think of education. So that is why we thank Unilever for engaging our society by empowering our children with useful nutrition knowledge. As KCCA, we thank them for up lifting the standard of education in our city,” she said.
The Schools’ Puzzle Challenge also rewarded the top school and teachers from the four regions of Uganda with cash prizes, schools project support. The top three pupils from each region were also rewarded with cash prizes that will be used for school fees.
The Hillary Kakooza from Kitante Primary School and Ramadan Asea from Future Foundation Primary School earned the fully paid trip to United States of America after collecting the most tokens in a Blue Band promotion.
