Tertiary Scholarships

This year One Village has launched 14 tertiary scholarships. These scholarships sponsor students from St Peter’s Secondary School in Namwendwa to attend various tertiary institutions throughout Uganda. One Village already offered and continues to offer 32 girls sponsorship at St Peter’s Secondary School, but as the first 8 girls to be sponsored in this initiative completed their studies last year, One Village felt the need to further develop the current scholarship scheme. The original scholarship scheme was established as it is a huge struggle for families to raise the required funds to send their children to secondary school, and priority is primarily given to males.

The purpose of St Peter’s Academic Scholarship Scheme for Girls, as well as enabling 8 girls each year to attend secondary school, is also to change community attitudes toward female education. We have measured this by comparing enrolment at the Primary School from before the program commenced to each year the program has been running. There has been an increase in female enrolment at Namwendwa Primary School every year since the programs first year in 2006. For the last two years, female enrolment has outnumbered male enrolment for the first time in the schools history.

For most families the thought of sending their children, male and female, to university or our equivalent of TAFE, is no more than a dream. The cost of such education is simply too much for the majority of families. It is for this reason we decided to offer the tertiary scholarships to both males and females.

Last year One Village began exploring the most effective way to offer further education opportunities.

Before students can attend university, they must first complete senior 5 and 6 (equivalent to our year 11 and 12). Village schools in Uganda, such as St Peter’s Secondary School, do not offer senior 5 and 6 because it is so rare for students to be able to afford to go onto this level. Two schools in Kamuli Town, 16 km from Namwendwa, offer senior 5 and 6. However, when considering this option, we recognised that there were so many variables in this option, that it is too high risk to take on at this stage. Variables included; how would the program operate when the student completed senior 6; what if the student’s grades were not sufficient for university? What if One Village did not have the funds to sponsor the university costs?

One Village also spent the year exploring the Ugandan equivalent to TAFE courses. We interviewed the students at St Peter’s, who were completing their final year, which course they preferred, and nursing was the dominant choice. We also felt that Nursing Scholarships would not only be an amazing opportunity for the selected students but also be beneficial for the prosperity of the country.

For this reason we have launched 4 Nursing Scholarships this year. Four girls were selected for these scholarships, based on their academic merit. These girls are Sarah Kawendeke, Irene Mugabi, Justine Kalembe and Janet Nangobi. The girls commenced their studies at Jinja School of Nursing on the 17^th of May this year. We pass our congratulations onto these girls and look forward to hearing more as their studies progress. We must also say a massive THANK YOU to In Good Company who are sponsoring these 4 girls.

We had expected to only be able to offer these 4 girls an opportunity for further study, however, a few months ago we began communications with the LBW Trust – Learning for a Better World. They expressed an interest in sponsoring students from Namwendwa to attend other tertiary institutions. THANK YOU SO MUCH TO LBW TRUST KINDNESS AND GENEROSITY we have been able to offer a further 10 tertiary scholarships. Congratulations to Helen Salaamu, Alex Issabirye, Pascal Mageni, Zakalia Semakula Geoffrey Kawayo, Fred Wanala and Otala Awali. 7 of these students have now commenced studies in teaching, 2 in brick laying and 1 in a motor vehicle course.   

We are extremely excited about being able to offer 14 students from Namwendwa this life changing opportunity, and know that it will be celebrated by the Namwendwa community at large.