To learn how you can help other would-be scholars like me visit The Kasiisi Project, the program that helped me so much.
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The cool Friday morning when I got the news that I'd been admitted to Harvard College will always remain etched in my mind. I was both amazed and stunned. For a moment, I paused to think about my situation: How did I, a young man from a small village in Western Uganda, get into what is arguably the best known university in the world?
When I further pondered this, I realized how much I had been empowered to contribute to the advancement of my community and the world at large. I recall vividly my early school days: I would go to school every day and would stay home on weekends, when I would play games with the kids in my neighborhood. The most spectacular of these was the "throwing game." In this game, we would collect heaps of small stones and throw them away in turns. We would declare the person who could throw furthest the winner. We would also allocate several levels of education to the various points where our stones would fall. We called the furthest possible point "Makerere," which to us meant University, and I would always strive to hit at that point.
I marvel at the avid interest that my playmates and I had in education.
Luckily enough, I have managed to climb the ladder of education, moving from primary school to secondary school and now to college! When I look back at my playmates, many of them are out of school and have turned into illiterate men and women: squandered human resource. This is not because they lacked the ability to learn, but because they did not have the opportunity to get a decent education. Many dropped out of school after primary school since they could not afford secondary school education. I was lucky enough to get the Kasiisi Project Scholarship.
Over the years, I have reflected on the many things that could have stopped my progress: frequent malaria attacks, lack of school fees and lack of food at school to name just a few possibilities. Bad luck and happenstance stop so many people in this part of the world from realizing their full potential. There have been several challenges, which I have always had to experience.
In primary school, I had to walk five kilometers daily to and from school,bearing the coldness of the morning on my bare feet before turning around and greeting the dangers of the dark. I endured long school days on an empty stomach. There were other obstacles of course, but the most important question is this: How do we, those who are already empowered or are on the road to empowerment, help contribute to the global goal of making education available to all.
In the scientific arena, I am particularly fascinated by the observation that when air is heated and gets warm, it rises. Whenever I think about this observation -- I often do -- I get amazed and think about an analogy I have dubbed the "get heated to raise community factor." I am convinced that the form of heat that my community and many others in Africa have been lacking is education.
I believe that this "heat" can be generated by projects like The Kasiisi Project that invest in the education and livelihoods of children. These groups empower people to work towards realizing their full potentials. As I write this, I pause and smile realizing that I am living proof this strategy works.
My getting into Harvard is a life-changing win for me, but only a small win for my community. I believe that small wins do bring success bit by bit. I know that I will have much more to contribute to my neighbors in four years and I can only imagine how much progress our villages could make if more young people have the same opportunities as me.
That can happen in any country or among any people where education is valued. Your story, like his, is inspirational.
Make secondary school education mandatory and available to everyone and you not only raise a community's quality of life, you have a direct affect on population growth! Women who have been well educated are more likely to both have the ability to and want to have a career, and are therefore more likely to have less children later in life. This means more local resources per head, better educated minds planning a community's development, better healthcare and a ever increasing generation by generation quality of education.
If you wish to tackle poverty, education is definitely the best place to start.