POE supports primary and secondary schools in Uganda to improve student outcomes by providing basic aid, such as nutrition, athletics, and academic support. Your donation to the Uganda Schools Project will be used to support schools like the Mukono Primary School.

In 2017, a couple POE board members stopped at Mukono Primary School as they were driving by after a day of gorilla treking in the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. They were so taken with their experience and the joy of the children, that they started funding a lunch program at the school on their own (not through POE).  Five years later in 2022, another board member visited the school and was so blown away by the impact the lunch program was having on the whole community, that the entire board decided to incorporate this special project into POE.  

Mukono School was closed for 22 months during Covid, and when it reopened in January 2022, their student population had grown from 571 to 828 because students did not get promoted to the next grade unless they passed a test. In April of 2022 POE awarded our first grant to build an onsite kitchen and serve the students lunch. In June of 2022 POE awarded a new grant to Mukono Primary School that included not only lunch, but breakfast, scholastic materials for all the children, as well as funds to hire new teachers, fund teacher training and a study tour. In addition, POE gives merit scholarships to any student who scores above a predetermined level on the government test administered at the end of the term.  The students pictured above are all merit scholars.

In December of 2022 POE promised to support any students in high school (approx $1,000 per year) who scored in the top division on the end of the year Primary Leaving Exam (PLE).  Typically, Mukono had 0 or 1 students score in this top division for the past 10 years, with a high of 3 in 2020 after the lunch program was instituted in 2018 and before Covid hit. In January 2023 the PLE results placed Mukono as the second best public school in their district with 7 students scoring in the highest division!  The improvements in the school have been big and fast, but there is still more to do!

We are continuing to support merit scholars, teachers (and their training to get bachelors degrees and certificates), overnight field trips, scholastic materials, high school students who perform at the top level, lunch, breakfast and also built a new set of pit toilets for the girls at the school. When the girls' netball teams qualified for nationals, but couldn't afford to attend, we sponsored that as well.  In February 2024 members of the POE board travelled to Bwindi to monitor our grants, reconnect with the Head Teacher/administrators and visit the community.  We were so impressed to see that every penny had been used as described and the joy and love from the community was overwhelming.  The students from Mukono School come from humble backgrounds, but they are making great strides and so appreciative of all that POE is doing to change their lives.  Before the lunch and breakfast program, the daily absenteeism rate was 30-45%. Now, it is around 5%, an incredible increase in the number of students attending school every day. Interestingly, during this same time period (pre and post Covid) the US has seen a dramatic increase in absenteeism with many fewer students attending school regularly.

Because so many more students are enrolling and actually showing up at school on a daily basis, there is a need for more classrooms at Mukono School.  We are hoping to raise enough money in 2024 to build 5 new classrooms. 

POE has also funded soccer and volleyball uniforms, nets for their goals, and bought more desks to support their increased enrollment. POE’s Board of Directors will select Ugandan schools to receive grants in support of the Uganda Schools Project. Your donation to the Uganda Schools Project will support POE’s work to ensure education of all students and support some students in continuing their education through higher degrees.  If you would like to hear more about our history with Mukono School and all that we are doing there, please email carol@poescholarships.org, we would love to share our enthusiasm with you!

If you would like to visit Mukono School, check out this video... 
https://youtu.be/dOeONv3QHlo