The Kasiisi Project · Elizabeth Ross, Founder & Director · 64 Linnaean Street · Cambridge MA 01238 · USA · +1.617.493.5775
To date, the building program has been the largest activity of the project, consuming most of the funds raised over the years. Repaired and new schoolrooms attract good teachers and provide the best possible learning environment for students.
Kasiisi Primary School now ranks first among 46 primary schools in Ruteete sub-county. Nearby Kanyawara Primary School has been brought from no buildings at all, from holding all classes outdoors under a tree, to five classroom buildings. These primary schools and the three others with which we work - Kiko, Kigarama and Rweteera - all now have sturdy, functioning latrines. New housing for teacher staff was completed in 2008. Construction began in 2008 on a new pre-school through Chris Thurston's funding efforts (left). Rweteera Primary School, to the south of Kasiisi, is undergoing major renovation during 2009 and onward. In 2009 a new kitchen building (left, next to bottom) for the Kasiisi Porridge Project was completed and went into daily use. Extensive dormitories (bottom left) are being built at Kasiisi School for use by students starting in 2010. There has been enormous progress.
But much remains to be done. We are working now on bringing electricity to Kasiisi School, on building library and computer room space in all of five schools, and we continue to refurbish decaying older buildings at all five schools.
Our educational efforts are expanding. We began funding scholarships in the late 1990s. The goal is to enable worthy students to progress through secondary school and college or university educations. 
Though secondary school has recently become state-sponsored and free, the availability of good secondary schooling remains very low. Private secondary schools are expensive at several hundred USD per year, more than the per-capita average income in Uganda. College and university schooling are not free and are considerably more expensive than secondary. As of late 2009 we are funding some 84 students in secondary schools and universities in western Uganda and in the capital city, Kampala. Photos »
Over time, we hope that more and more of these capable, energetic and well-informed scholars will return to the community to inspire and guide change for the better.
Conservation has been a key work area for the Kasiisi Project from the beginning. The project was started by primate researchers at nearby Kibale Forest, 
in large part to raise awareness among nearby communities about the criticality of saving the forest and its denizens. Widespread deforestation and over-cultivation of farmland near the forest have led to firewood shortages, diminishing production of crops, and adverse changes in weather patterns.
We work with the Kibale Forest Chimpanzee Project, the Jane Goodall Institute of Uganda, the Uganda Wildlife Authority, Uganda Wildlife Clubs, and other groups. A new umbrella organization, the Kibale Forest Coalition for Conservation Education, was formed in 2009 to coordinate activities among these and other conservation groups in the area.
