About Us
Special Projects
Pursuit of Excellence is involved in the Special Projects listed below. Your general support will provide support to POE overall and our scholarship program, not our special projects; if you would like to donate to any of our special projects, please specify that (“Uganda Schools”) in your donation or contact carol@poescholarships.org.
Uganda Schools Project
Since 2022, Pursuit of Excellence has supported a special project known as the Uganda Schools Project. The Uganda Schools Project is replicating our U.S. scholarship program in a rural area of Uganda. The education system in rural Uganda generally offers students less opportunities and resources, so our support for Ugandan children starts in primary school to ensure a sound educational foundation. POE’s initial support is at Mukono Primary School near the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest in Uganda. We are providing individual academic scholarships, free meals, training and salaries for teachers, curriculum and infrastructure support, equipment and supplies, and financial support for athletics.
How It All Began
In 2017, a couple POE board members stopped at Mukono Primary School as they were driving by after a day of gorilla trekking 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 formally create a Uganda Schools Project to provide additional support through POE. Click here for the full story.
Capital Projects and Infrastructure Support
- Built onsite kitchen to serve the students meals
- Built pit toilets for both the boys and girls in 2023 and 2024
- In 2025 finished construction on a 2-story building with 5 classrooms, a huge multi-purpose auditorium, offices and flush toilets
- In 2027 starting construction on another 2-story building with 5 classrooms and a staff room on the first floor and a girls dorm on the second floor ~ being built in memory of Scott Smallwood, who unintentionally initiated this whole project 🙂
Current Ongoing Programs and Support
- Breakfast and Lunch for all students – doubled enrollment and decreased absenteeism from ~40% to 5%
- Scholarships for Primary, High School (and hopefully University) Students
- Designed a Digital Classroom to bring high-tech learning to the school (including updating all the infrastructure)
- Teachers – Paid salaries for 5 teachers in 2022, 10 teachers in 2024 and are now paying for 15 teachers in 2026
- Teacher training – Pay for 5 teachers a year to get Masters, Bachelors or Certificate – in addition assisting 2 teachers to obtain degrees in IT to support the Digital Classroom
- Sports and More – Financial support for Sports (including for the girls netball team(s) to go to nationals for 10 days when they qualified), Overnight Study Tour and Scholastic Materials
- Nursing Degrees – Funded 16 students getting advanced degrees in nursing and midwifery at the Bwindi Community Hospital
Impact So Far…
- Enrollment has doubled (and now capped at 900 students) while absenteeism has decreased from ~40% to 5%
- 32 students scoring Division 1 on the PLE over the last 4 years ~ compared to 4 over the previous 4 years
- Percent of students doing poorly on the PLE (Division 3, 4 or fail) dropped from 34% to 4%
- Thirty-nine students receiving high school scholarships (attending boarding schools)
- One student who became pregnant and had a child was able to stay in school as we advocated and paid for childcare, challenging the social norms
- Number of merit scholars at primary school has doubled
Plans for the Future – How You Can Help!
We continue to look for ways we can improve and expand our Uganda Schools Project and welcome others to join our efforts to change the lives of children in Uganda. Our plan is to build another 2-story building with 5 classrooms and a staff room on the first floor and a girls dorm on the second floor. The students in P6 and P7 usually board at the school because they have classes in the evening and on Saturdays and some come from far away. The current girls dorm situation is tough – crowded, no lighting, no space for belongings, barely enough room to walk between the bunkbeds and no toilet or shower facilities. Mukono School has become very popular, so we have agreed to limit enrollment to 900 to avoid continually having over crowding issues.
Dorm and Classroom Design – Construction to Begin 2027
Scott Smallwood, who jumpstarted what would later become the official POE Uganda Schools Project back in 2018 with his random act of kindness in funding the original Mukono School lunch program, passed away in February 2026. Donations were made in his memory and some of those will go towards this new project, which he would have loved!
We also plan to continue to support all students in high school who score in division 1 on the PLE and our support will continue through university if they meet certain benchmarks. To date ZERO students have dropped out of the scholarship program! As the students at Mukono reap more benefits from our programs their results have continued to improve. We would like to continue to support every student who scores Division One on the PLE and we would like to support them through University if they continue to excel, but to do this, we need more financial support. It costs a little over $1,000 for a year of high school. Uganda has a total of 6 years of high school and then 3 to 5 years of university. This means that for every student who gets Division One, it is a potential 10 year commitment of $7,000 for high school and $13,000 for University from POE which works out to about $2,000 per year.
If you are interested in sponsoring a student (for any amount of time), helping us build the dorm and classrooms or helping us with all of our ongoing projects, we would love to hear from you. We are passionate about the Uganda Schools Project and we encourage you to ask us about visiting the School too. It’s an amazing community and we feel so lucky to be a part of it – please join us!
Gallery below is celebrating our final day at the school after a week long visit
POE’s Board of Directors will select Ugandan schools to receive grants through 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
If you are thinking of donating, check out this video…
https://youtu.be/DbULkDJTmd4
Link to our donation page…
https://poescholarships.org/get-involved/donate/
Please Come Visit Mukono School!!
2024 Visit
