Buhugu Scholarship Program, Uganda
(2007-08)

Later we discovered that nine more girls from the same elementary school had passed their graduation exams, so we didn’t stop there. In 2008 we raised an additional $6,950 to send them all to high school, which also raised awareness in the community on girls’ abilities and their potential to succeed. Gimugu Kiboman, head teacher at Buhugu Secondary School, writes in a letter of appreciation, “Educated women form the basis for national development.”

As explained by Wilber Madaba, educator and founder of Shared Blessings, “In Sironko the girls cannot go home and do homework. When they get home their mothers say, ‘You have been sitting all day, now it is your time to work.’ The girls do the washing and cleaning and there is no encouragement to go to school and do well. A boy can be late coming home after football and no one questions him as to where he has been. And he can do homework. Most girls will just drop out because they have missed so much of their education.” In addition to helping educate more girls in his community, Madaba encouraged them to work twice as hard at school when they could not study at home.