Saturday, November 8, 2025 is this year’s school day where religion and charity in a spiritual perspective will; be the gist of the day; Moslem learners will graduate from reading the ‘Yasalna’ to the Koran, while learners in the highest level of nursery will be commissioned to a higher level.
DREAMLAND Junior School is located about half a kilometer from Joggo trading centre along Misindye-Bukerere Road in Goma Division of Mukono Municipality. Located in the heart of a very remote area in very humble surroundings, one’s sixth sense rises up and reminds one about the founders’ objective in selecting such a place, as put by the Co-Director Hadijah Ssenabulya who narrated to our team the history of the school – ‘to give Ugandans of all walks of life an opportunity to share the benefits derived from education’.
Started by a couple in 2019 through meagre savings of a nursery school teacher and a school Accountant, Harunah and Hadijah Ssenabulya were not deterred by words from detractors to the effect that ‘the place is a village, you won’t get pupils’, but strived on with the faith and belief that education is the key that unlocks even remote areas, and along that ideology, they moulded the school motto “Foundation Matters”.
And after construction of the first school block in 2018, they got ready to get started, and in 2019, they started off with three learners, one of them being their daughter who is writing her PLE this year.
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Born in Mbikko in Njeru Municipality, Buikwe district in the outskirts of the source of R. Nile, to Abdu Bbaale and Mrs Nassali, Hadijah went to school at Naava Primary School, St. Noah Mawaggali SSS Njeru, then to Kibuli Core PTC where she gained a diploma in education.
She pays tribute first to her parents and her Primary head teacher, Mr. Musoke who strived to make her love science and mathematics in her upper primary section, to make a proud science teacher today. At this juncture, Mrs Ssenabulya calls on President Museveni to think about science teachers in primary schools as he rewards secondary and post-secondary science teachers, arguing that those shining science teachers up there began off from the grassroots where equally good primary teachers prepared them to become what the president is now proud of.
Although she currently holds a diploma, Mrs Ssenabulya plans to go for further education, and actually implores her teachers to think about upgrading, to be able to reap from President Museveni’s reward for science teachers.
After her education, she joined Umar BA Islamic School located at Kigunga in Mukono Municipality, where she taught for ten years before shifting to Seeta Parents Primary School where she taught for six years and then got the dream to begin her own school, not necessarily to mint more money, but rather to get the feel of extending the dream and hold in her hands the mantle of providing knowledge to others.
While her husband was busy working at Kibuli where he is a bursar, Mrs Ssenabulya was busy moving house to house in Joggo, ‘kakuyege’ style, making friends who, unknown to them, she was training to become her marketeers in looking for learners to begin with.
“Today, we hold a reasonable number of learners and eight teachers with classes running up to Primary Three; our tactic is opening up a new class every year up to 2028 when their pioneer candidates will write their PLE. She curses the day COVID-19 was declared to have hit the country, because she reminisces, the next two years of going into hibernation caused a hiccup of sorts, but she adds, they unconditionally accepted the situation and joined the rest of the world in praying for the pandemic to release its grip on mankind and graciously, this came to pass and they got into business again, but not without drawbacks like and challenges like beginning afresh on the task of sweet talking parents to bring back the children.
At first, management was faced with the task of demystifying what she called an erroneous belief by villagers that Dreamland was a school for the well off, and says they have taken this task head on by accepting learners as they come and with as little money their parents have, with a revised payment mode accommodating everyone as they come.
“We have devised a parent-friendly system where those in agricultural production bring what they harvest in return for education for their children because we reasoned, what is the reason for getting money from them, when they can give us say, maize flour and we provide their children with education? Here there is a give-and-take sort of transaction and we separate as happy people on either side,” she explained.
The school is among all multi-denominational in nature, with pupils from all religious beliefs accepted on an equal basis, and with spiritual guides teachers to keep the children attached to their faiths all the time.
Dreamland school holds an annual theme, and this year’s theme runs thus: “Spiritual Growth Through Reading”, and the idea is to sink among learners the need to stay attached to their religious beliefs through reading holy books as specified in their respective religions.
Saturday, November 8, 2025 is this year’s school day where religion and charity in a spiritual perspective will; be the gist of the day; Moslem learners will graduate from reading the ‘Yasalna’ to the Koran, while learners in the highest level of nursery will be commissioned to a higher level.
On that day, all stakeholders, parents and friends of the school are invited to spend the day with the school, share ideas, have fun and share all aspects of expanding the school to greater heights.
What about the perennial taxation outcry almost in all private schools? “Yes, taxes are high especially for us new beginners with few learners, but we must comply to national taxation requirements because anyway, we must stay afloat; that is why we hold dear communities in Joggo who are our marketeers, and who enable us to pay taxes,” the director said.
And what is the relationship with other education investors in the area? Ssenabulya had this for an answer: “If you are not at par with your neighbours, then you have no business staying with other people because you are an enemy of development; development is not a single man affair, but a virtue that comes after joining hands with other players”.
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