A section of private school teachers in Gulu City and surrounding areas launched a social media campaign dubbed, Open our Schools or Feed the Teachers. Before starting the campaign, there was a call for teacher’s most affected by COVID-19’s lack of income, to register for food aid. They took this campaign to social media platforms when a considerable number of teachers had signed-up. Print media, including The Independent Magazine, that reported on campaign, as being a success, with food relief donations from sources like the Calvary Chapel, were received. Nearly 600 hundred teachers, mainly from Private schools, received food packages right in their homes.

Each teacher received 10 kilograms of maize floor and 5 kilograms of beans. Openytho William Lucima of the Independent Magazine explained how private school teachers had not received salaries from April 2020, unlike teachers in Government schools, and were struggling to even get the day’s meal. Charity Ajok, a teacher at Mama Catherine Primary and Nursery School, called on government to step in to support teachers at private institutions, that had no income as long as schools remained closed. The ultimate goal was to ensure that at the least, food be given to up to 1000 teachers registered under their campaign.

Stella Akong, one of the beneficiaries and a teacher at Future Hope Nursery and Primary School, said she started a food garden in her backyard in order to have a certain source of income, because it was not certain when schools would be re-opened. She said the donation of food aid supplemented what she had planted in her backyard garden.