Kasiisi Project
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How to Fund a Secondary School Scholarship Through The Kasiisi Project

Your scholarship donation will very likely completely change the life of a highly deserving child.

Donations to The Kasiisi Project are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law. The Kasiisi Project is a secular 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.

Pass through: The Kasiisi Project passes through over 90% of donations to worthy causes in Africa. An accountant at the Makarere University Biological Field Station near Kasiisi in Uganda monitors the project's accounts continuously in all details. All expenditures are required to have receipts, and all account information and receipts are transferred back to the US at least twice per year for auditing. No money passes through the hands of any staff at the schools with which the Project works.

To fund a tax-deductible secondary school scholarship:

Download brochure with sign-up instructions (Microsoft Word 6.0 format), or follow the directions below.

  • We ask that you commit to funding your scholar for the full 4 years of boarding-school secondary education. Boarding school costs $500 per year, but prices go up $25 each year due to inflation in Uganda. You can fund either $250 per year or $500 per year plus an annual increment for inflation. Sponsoring a scholar jointly with another donor requires $250 per year per donor, and $1,038 total per donor, counting annual increases due to inflation. Or you can donate $500 per year, for a total of $2,075 counting increases due to inflation, to sponsor a scholar fully yourself.
  • Please write and sign a brief cover letter that states your commitment to funding a scholar for 4 years. Indicate in the letter any preferences you might have for the selection of your scholar, such as gender or overall family characteristics; the scholarship selection committee will try to select according to your preferences, but the committee cannot guarantee an exact match.
  • Make out a check for 1 to 4 years of scholarship, payable to "The Kasiisi Project".
  • In the memo area of the check, write "$250 Scholarship" or "$500 Scholarship", as appropriate.
  • Mail the letter and check to:

    •       The Kasiisi Project
          64 Linnaean Street
          Cambridge MA 02138 USA

    You will receive a prompt acknowledgement and receipt - and thanks! - by mail, or by email if that is acceptable to you and if so then please include your email address. You will come to know your scholar's name and other personal information. Each year you will get a progress report. Occasionally you may receive a letter from him or her describing how life in secondary school has been going. Thank you!

    How secondary school scholarships are awarded and monitored

    Each year, the Kasiisi School Scholarship Committee, which is a rotating panel of parents and teachers, selects at least one P7 (6th grade) boy and one P7 girl to be funded for 4 years of secondary education. Selected children may not be related to any committee member. The number of children selected in a given year depends on how much funding is available and on how many children qualify. To qualify, a child must have passed the Uganda national examinations given in October and November (the "Primary Leaving Examinations"), must show strong academic and personal promise, and must have financial need, which nearly all children at Kasiisi do. Results of the Leaving Examinations are published in January, and scholarship selections are made during January and February.

    It is essential to recognize that the people of Kasiisi must make the selections themselves, without direct guidance or advice from scholarship donors in the United States, Great Britain or elsewhere. Nearly all scholarship students succeed, but a few have not and a few others will not in the future. Sometimes health can become an issue, or family situations, or personal challenges. Only the people of Kasiisi and its surrounds can know most or all of the factors that could help or hinder a particular child from completing secondary school successfully.

    Selected scholarship children are required to maintain good academic records during their four years of secondary school. Students are monitored regularly by scholarship committee members. One new avenue for Kasiisi Project funding may be to expand and formalize the monitoring, by advancing modest stipends to teachers and administrators in secondary schools attended by Kasiisi scholars. The more scholarship students there are, the more important it will become to have organized monitoring.

    Scholarship funding began in 2000. As of this writing in mid 2008, numerous scholars have graduated from secondary school, and one has graduated from teacher training college and is now a teacher at Kasiisi Primary School, where he was once a pupil. Currently there are some 68 Kasiisi scholars. When Elizabeth Ross visits Kasiisi School, most recently in mid 2008, scholarhip students gather at Kasiisi School for a celebratory reception and to write letters to their sponsors.