Welcome

Upcoming Events:

MCF Celebration and Welcome Reception for Enos Tweteise                                                           

Jan. 20, 2013, 6 pm to 9 pm at 12813 Talley Ln, North Potomac MD

MCF is honored to welcome our Ugandan in-country program coordinator Enos Tweteise on his first visit to America. Please join us for spirits and light appetizers as we highlight our achievements from 2012 and outline our plans for 2013 and beyond! This is a family-friendly event. Please RSVP to andrea@mcoxfoundation.org.

We are excited that this is our second year participating in the MLK National Day of Service.

Please join us at the Bethesda North Conference Center on Monday, January 21, 2013 from 9-11AM for a Service Projects and Volunteer Fair.

MCF will be hosting a table for children in Bethesda to pen pal and SKYPE with the students from our partner schools in Uganda. Volunteers and/or participants are welcomed.

Spring 2013 Expanding Horizons Trip.

MCF is excited to host a team of 21 volunteers from the United States that will travel to Kabale, Uganda from March 23-April 5. This trip will focus on health care awareness, education, and building community relationships. The team includes eight middle and high-schoolers, teachers, dental hygienists, a nurse, and a doctor from NIH.

Team Fundraiser at the Winery in Olney, Thursday, Feb. 7, 2012. 6 pm to 9 pm

Please come out to support our silent auction, raffle, and bake sale complete with complementary appetizers and wine tasting! We are hoping to raise enough funds to provide toothbrushes and fluoride treatments to the almost 3,000 Ugandan students the team will be working with in the sixth and seventh grades when they travel to Uganda in the spring. We are also providing water filters to families in the community as well as distributing underwear to the boys and Afri-pads to the girls. MCF has six fabulous wines available for purchase, as well as a wide array of goods to choose from in the silent auction.

LATEST NEWS

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

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.

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.