Maureen Akech is no stranger to hard work and perseverance. When her parents passed away, Maureen Akech and her sister moved in with her aunt and uncle, who also support their own five children and two nephews.

Seeing the amount of work that was burdening her aunt and uncle, Maureen decided to pitch in some effort to help. Maureen tends to their crops and still focuses on her schoolwork, with the hope that she will one day hold a successful job and provide financial stability to the family.

As an Educate! Scholar, she aspires to become a successful lawyer and someone who is known for her valuable contributions and generosity not only to her family but also in her community! 

Nuru Namono is an Educate! Scholar from eastern Uganda who demonstrates the potential of the next generation and illustrates the power of Educate!’s work. Several of Nuru’s friends did not have the opportunity to go to school and in order to make money they ended up resorting to prostitution in local bars.  Bothered the challenging situation she saw in her peers, Nuru decided to take action!

Dedicated to making a positive impact, Nuru motivated fourteen prostitutes from her local community to make fashionable clothes, which they were able to sell at a profit and earn a much needed source of income. Nuru didn’t stop there; together these young women organized a fashion show to promote their clothing line.

They have now formed a saving group with hopes that in the future they can become their own bosses. With the guidance of her Educate! Mentor, Nuru has positively transformed the course for many young women and the ripple she has created will be seen for generations to come.

Sarah Nambozo (Mbale High 2011-12) started a Micro saving Group consisting of 18 youth in her community and receives a cash grant of Ushs. 300,000 from a community organization for her tree planting project.  As ambitious young female from Mukudui Township in Mbale, Sarah testifies that a lot of potential was silent within her before she came into contact with the Educate! 

Growing up, she observed her brothers join the University only to get back home jobless. This has inspired a deep desire to see an empowered generation of youth in her community.

Although she was once a timid girl, Sarah has become an advocate for youth empowerment in her community participating in youth drama and soliciting community support for the promotion of youth entrepreneurship. She aspires to become a ray of hope to her peers and for this reason Sarah has opted to call her youth group, Hope Youth Saving Scheme. 

During her school vacation, Jane set up a garden of beans which harvested Ushs. 150,000 (Approx. $52). She reinvested a portion of this money by purchasing dry coffee seeds from farmers in her village and then selling the coffee seeds at a minimum margin to coffee processors at the business center. With the remaining money, she started a grocery stall that sells oil and tomatoes.

Motivated by Jane’s determination to change the welfare of her home, youth in Jane’s community approached her for mentorship. Jane has led this group of youth to start an initiative that makes energy efficient stoves to prevent deforestation in the Bulambuli district of Eastern Uganda. The rate of deforestation in this area due to rapid population growth, has led to devastating mudslides leaving hundreds of people homeless. This initiative has contributed to offering a brighter future for the devastated region of Bulambuli.

 In August, Jane helped the group of youth launch a savings circle that earns money by cleaning the market area. The money saved will kick start their Community Credit Project. By leading the youth in her community and teaching them the skills that she has learned from Educate!, Jane truly embodies one of Educate!’s core values, exponential empowerment. 

Thanks to Educate!, Victoria realizes she can make meaningful contributions to her community while also building a for-profit enterprise. She plans to begin her university studies in two years. 

Our guests visited classes with our Mentors and had a chance to interact one-on-one with some of our students. They toured projects run by our students in their home villages. They ran workshops with our staff to build skills and capacity within our organization, and they sat in on weekly meetings to learn more about the daily operations of Educate!. Some of our visitors even braved a rafting trip on the Nile and trekked Bwindi National Park to catch a sneak peak of the gorillas in their home territory!

The exciting few months with our guests culminated in the much-anticipated First Annual Job Creators BBQ that Educate! hosted to celebrate and support our youth. The BBQ was well attended by a diverse group of Educate! supporters including students, teachers, government officials, diplomats, NGO workers, and many of our closest friends! 

The event kicked off with a rousing brass-band performance by Educate! students from M-LISADA, an orphanage focused on cultivating art and music skills in children formerly living on the streets. We were then serenaded by up-and-coming Ugandan rock-star Rachel K who captivated us with her original compositions.

Rachel then jump-started our auction by auctioning off singing lessons to the highest bidder. A series of activities were auctioned off to raise money to support our programs. With activities such as salsa dancing lessons, dinner at an upscale restaurant, a home cooked brunch and most impressively lunch with the U.S. Ambassador to Uganda, we were able to raise over $600!

The event concluded with a beautiful performance from Ugandan singer Tshila, who dazzled us with songs in French, English and Luganda! It was truly a remarkable day thanks to the wonderful performers and people in attendance.

With this exciting summer coming to a close, the whole Educate! team is feeling inspired and ready to reach even greater heights in the coming year! Thank you to all of our supporters in the U.S. and Uganda who are motivating us to constantly strive for greater results and last impact!

Thank you to David, Jim, Ellen, Debby, Matt, Linda, Tom, Skylar, Kyle, Mike, Bo, and Win for venturing all the way out here to visit us! And thank you to Jordyn, Karti, Rives, Melanie, Liz and Kathlyn for working with us and donating so much of your time to improve the work we’re doing! We hope to see you all again soon. 

Vic’s Coffee helped participants wake up for the early morning hike while we all enjoyed live music from Lost Angel Station while learning about Educate!’s scholars and how Educate! was started. We had many raffle winners that received gift cards to local restaurants, PetSmart gift package, hiking boots and a painting that was created by one of Educate!’s interns!

The hike could not have been possible without the help from all of our sponsors and volunteers. A big thanks to Vic’s Coffee, Honest Tea, Eldorado Spring Water and Lost Angel Station! Special thanks to everyone that came out and participated in the hike, we hope to see you all at Educate!’s Ball!

Her project started out as a simple fish pond, constructed out of materials provided by family and community members, and has grown into a business that provides several jobs, a desired commodity, and financial income for local families. With the help of her Educate! Experience lessons, Doreen knows this project will be successful!!



We’ll be joining the office of Bridges to Prosperity, which provides isolated communities with access to essential healthcare, education and economic opportunities by building footbridges over impassable rivers. We don’t doubt that their creative energy will inspire us in many ways. We’re looking forward to building up the collaborative synergy anticipated for the Greenhouse Project, a collaboration of 30 organizations in Colorado (inlcuding Educate!) who work in development throughout the world, which will be launched in Summer 2012. We appreciate Bridges to Prosperity for sharing their space with us!

We hope you’ll come visit us at our new space and learn more about the work of Educate!’s teams in Colorado and Uganda, and hear the inspirational stories of many of our Scholars!

Miracle Corners of the World (MCW) organized the Second Community Leaders Seminar in the Zambian city of Kafue, 40 minutes south of Lusaka, from May 23-27, 2011. The event brought together the leadership of MCW’s community center network in Africa from Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Zambia to learn about MCW’s mission and operational approach and to develop workable solutions to some of the centers’ most pressing challenges.

MCW Executive Director Eddie Bergman opened the seminar at ¡Revolución! Mexican restaurant  in Lusaka. Also in attendance were MCW Trustees Kabinga Pande Jr and Andrew Chilufya, MCW board member Anna Condoulis, and MCW staff member Khalid Elachi. “For most of us, it was such an impressive moment to meet all community center leaders for the first time in one place and be able to recognize that we all share challenges which we will definitely turn into opportunities and solutions as long as our efforts are combined,” said MCW’s Country Coordinator in Rwanda Jackson Vugayabagabo.

The seminar, facilitated by Solomon Kayiwa Mugambe, an Educate! Alumni Coordinator covered a wide range of topics including business planning, social entrepreneurship, innovation, marketing, sustainability, and assessing impact. Each participant wrote a business plan for a new social enterprise at their respective community center. Ms. Anna Condoulis linked the ideas discussed at the seminar to MCW’s actual operations on the ground. The plans will be shared with MCW’s Advisory Board for input and advice and will then be sent back to the participants, creating a new level of interaction between MCW’s leaders in the field and its leaders in New York. “…I used to here about a business plan and people used to say this was something very very hard, i even tried reading about it but failed to understand it, during this week Solomon has proved to us that its easy to write a business plan and we have been able to each write a business plan for our centers..” said Miracle Corners Tanzania Country Coordinator Abdu Mohamed 

On the closing evening of the seminar, we took an evening cruise on the Kafue Queen river boat along the Kafue River where Ms Anna Condoulis presented Educate!’s first publication-Transform Uganda to all Country Coordinators to help them build on their knowledge of entrepreneurship, business and other lessons learned during the seminar.