Cave Adullam

The problem

A school partnered with the United Nations across Uganda and South Africa was running admissions, records, staff and parent communication on paper and WhatsApp — and needed to accept donations from abroad at the same time. Two very different problems, one system, and a donor audience that will not tolerate friction.

The approach

A full school management system built on role-based portals over a shared account model.

• Administrators issue credentials for staff and families.
• Teachers manage classes, records and day-to-day operations.
• Parents and students sign in to their own portal.

Donors, staff, teachers and parents are one user table with different capabilities — not four parallel systems bolted together. Donations run through a public campaign page with preset and custom amounts, a live raised total, and a gallery of the school itself. Proof, not promises, which is most of what makes a stranger give.

What I owned

All of it. Architecture, data model, the role and permission system, the donation flow, deployment. I was the first engineer the school had — there was no existing system to extend.

Outcome

Public since July 2026. R25,000 raised. Nursery through P7, serving Arua City and the surrounding districts.