Welcome

LATEST NEWS

March/April 2012 – Clean water installed in 3 schools benefiting 1100 children

The beneficiaries

Nyamiyaga Primary School gets a water tank

Attending a school that has NO water is unimaginable to many of us and this in a place where a water bottle is a complete luxury. But we changed that for 3 schools.  In partnership with The Project Solution, 2 rain harvest tanks were installed impacting 800 school-children and staff. Manor Woods Church also installed a tank at their partner school – Makanga Primary School – impacting another 300 school children.

February 2012 - Connecting Kids on Martin Luther King Jr Day of Service 2012 

Over 200 children were part of a Day of Service that involved cross-cultural communication between Uganda and the U.S. MCF arranged for children to write letters and skype with their counterparts in Kabale, Uganda. There was great excitement on both ends as adults and children alike chatted, asked questions and laughed with each other.

“If we are to have peace on earth, our loyalties…must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation; and this means we must develop a world perspective.” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

January 2012 – Sepi Mukombe Mpambara Global Fellows go on first Expanding Horizons Tour of Uganda

Our secondary school scholarship recipients went on their first Expanding Horizons trip to Kampala. They visited nationally renown sites such as Makerere University, Parliament, Uganda Museum, Entebbe Airport and the zoo. The Fellows are authentically learning about other tribes and building tolerance in Uganda’s multi-cultural society that has about 54 different tribes. Part of the Fellows program promotes good ethics, teaches leadership and encourages community service.

January 2012 -  MCF reaches 200 mirco-credit women borrowers

Women In Support of Education (WISE) Initiative. The Orange and Brown groups joined a growing number of women who receive micro-loans from MCF. WISE now impacts over 1500 community members giving them economic empowerment and enabling their children to stay in school.

2011- 2012: American University offers MCF as AU Abroad internship opportunity
American University’s School of International Service is offering an internship opportunity for their students to spend time enriching their experience as MCF interns in Kabale. For more information about the program .
Click here for more http://www.american.edu/sis/summer/upload/Uganda-internships.pdf

SUCCESS STORY : How a $70 Micro-loan Changed Jolly’s Life

Proud of her cow, her biggest investment

Back in 2010, Jolly Tumuhimbise, a widowed parent at Kengoma Primary School looked after her household of 9 on less than $1 a day. It’s not that she was lazy.  She worked everyday as a fruit vendor, selling fruit to passersby from a basket that she carried on her head through Kabale town. That was before she became a WISE woman!

On January 24, 2011, Jolly joined a peer group of WISE Women (Women In Support of Education); after undertaking financial literacy training, completing a simple business plan and pledging to keep her children in school, she received her first ever loan of $70.

“Before I joined WISE I used to buy one sack of mostly rotting fruit from suppliers. In two days my fruit looked so bad, no one wanted to buy it. With my first loan, I was able to buy 2 sacks of fresher fruit that lasted longer. I sold to better customers who paid more money, so I made a good profit. Now I buy 4 sacks every week.”  Jolly said

With a 100% repayment rate, she has taken three loans to date. In the third loan cycle, – January 2012 – she had the courage to borrow $150!  The loan program encourages the women to save so as to accumulate capital to make investments. After loan repayments, buying school uniforms, scholastic materials, medical expenses and food, Jolly has proved to be a good saver. By December 2011 she had saved enough to invest in a cow, a goat and 2 chicken. Her monthly income is now about $160 per month! That is amazing for a rural, widowed, African woman that has never set a foot in a classroom and cannot read or write. There isn’t a banking system that would ever believe in her ability to repay a loan no matter how small.

“If I were to sell the cow today, I would get 500,000/= ($250) ,” she says beaming with pride, “I can afford to provide two meals for my children and they are in school. I now have the ability to solve any problem that I come across. I thank E. Lushaya Women’s Group for including me and the Mpambara Cox Foundation for giving me the loan, guidance and confidence I needed to use the loan wisely.” Jolly says.