Palabek Secondary School is located in northeastern Uganda
Palabek Senior Secondary School is a mixed day, middle and high school, located in Patanga Parish, Palabek-Gem Sub-county, Lamwo District in the Northern Region of Uganda. It is a community founded school, public and government aided, 140 km from the nearest city of Gulu via Atiak town on Gulu–Nimule highway. Palabek school has approximately 725 students.
A member of the Uganda Parliament and the current Minister for Relief, Disaster Preparedness and Refugees in the Ugandan Cabinet, Honorable Hilary Obaloker Onek, a civil engineer by training, is one of the sponsors and founders of this school that provides basic education to the many children recovering from the trauma of the Lord's Resistance Army rebel war that lasted for over two decades in Uganda, the South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
In the past six years, in 2014 and 2017, Palabek School experienced two lightning incidents which, fortunately, did not result in deaths or destruction of property but shocked the learners. LPS was installed by ACLENet with funding from Ludwick Family Foundation in 2019.
This video shows the commmissioning celebration of LPS presided over by Engineer Hilary Onek in his two capacities as Hon. Minister of Disaster Preparedness and Refugees and as patron to the school.
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Palabek Secondary School was first installed in 2019. Since then its' enrollment has increased dramatically so more classroom building had to be built. ACLENet traveled to Palabek to install LPS in these new buildings, test and repair the entire system, and give lightning safety education to the staff and students.
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For ACLENet's second decade of work in Uganda, we are opening a new phase that we have long wished to implement. This phase concentrates on lightning safety education -- behavioral education that can help people know how to decrease their risk of lightning injury. This report is one of the first on the educational program being piloted in 2025
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Overall plan for Palabek -
Courtyard photo of Palabek School -
Lightning arrestor (rod) being installed on one of the buildings -
Parents pitch in by digging trenches for the earthing ring -
Parent digging trench for the earthing ring -
Hon. Minister Hilary Onek at Palabek Commissining Celebration Feb 8, 2020, wearing ACLENet shirt
