By Frank Kamuntu
It was a joyful moment on Saturday as the Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE) Uganda Country Chapter provided 15 disadvantaged girls with bursaries to help them complete their secondary education. Ms. Muzoora Juliet Atuhaire, Commissioner of Secondary Education, Ministry of Education and Sports, officiated the bursary award ceremony, held at FAWE Uganda headquarters in Bukoto, Kampala.
This initiative is part of the organization’s ongoing 20k For Transformation campaign, which was launched on 5 May 2024. The campaign aims to raise funds to support vulnerable girls who are in secondary school to complete their secondary education. It has successfully raised about UGX 16,000,000 million shillings to assist girls from underprivileged backgrounds who are at risk of dropping out of school due to socio-economic challenges. These girls are in candidate classes, and the bursary helps them to sit their national exams and transit to the next level.
The 20k For Transformation fundraising campaign specifically targets girls who would otherwise face the prospect of leaving school, addressing the critical issue of gender disparity in education. The campaign encourages well-wishers, individuals, institutions and organizations to contribute a minimum of UGX 20,000, to provide support to underprivileged girls.
In her remarks, Ms. Muzoora Juliet Atuhaire, Commissioner of Secondary Education presented the scholarship award letters to the 10 beneficiaries and commended FAWE for securing a brighter future for these girls.
”I am super thrilled to see that all these 15 people who had lost hope of completing their studies are now going back to their respective schools with zero fees balance, courtesy of the generosity of FAWE and other donors. I pray that these beneficiaries can forego earthly confusion and value this support by focusing on succeeding academically,” said Atuhaire.
She committed herself to continue working with FAWE to uplift girl child education; She called up on Ugandans and Africans in general to join hands with FAWE to ensure that the 20k campaign can continue generating more funds to keep the girls in schools.
FAWE Uganda Executive Director, Ms. Susan Opok Tumusime in her remarks, revealed that they came up with the 20k campaign after realizing that several girls in Uganda were dropping out of schools due to financial reasons hence boosting early child marriages and teenage pregnancies.
”The 20k campaign will save the future of very many young girls. Earlier this year I met a lady in Karamoja and she shared with us a very heart-touching story. She scored 11 aggregates in P7 but she didn’t have money to push her to secondary, she came to Kampala to be a house helper so that she could raise money and go back to school. Unfortunately, things didn’t go as she planned, so she ended up going back to the village and reaching there, her parents surrendered her to a man and she got married, at 20 years she had four children and the husband was no longer taking care of them. She says one day she had no food and she opted to steal Ugx100k to feed her children. She was arrested and jailed for 1 full year. Now this is a story of one girl among the very many and all the above are a result of lack of financial support to keep such girls in schools,” said Ms. Tumusime.
She said that the campaign is not stopping at the 15 girls who got the bursaries today, but will continue running to support more girls.
”Today our Alumni have come with 3.8m and while here, someone topped up 200k now we have Ugx4m from the Alumni association and this brings our total to Ugx16m. These Alumni have gone through this same experience, we supported them and now they have good jobs. So they have got something to bring back home to assist their sisters facing the same challenges they faced,” said Ms. Susan.
She said the 20k campaign beneficiaries have so far joined the hundreds of other students who have benefited from programs like; Social Initiative Educate Girls, MasterCard Foundation among many others.
The parents and beneficiaries of this campaign praised FAWE for the support and noted that this is a stepping stone that they will build on to achieve their life dreams.
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