Help bring Financial Stability to Uganda

By investing in education, Opportunity Uganda is keeping children in school and promoting a brighter future. A growing school can permanently alter the socioeconomic reality of a community, creating an “upward spiral” of economic opportunities that provide families with the means to keep kids in school, forever changing the survival prospects of those families.

Real Quality Junior School  in Kampala, Uganda, started out small, but thanks to the hard work of founding couple, Lydia and Antoli, and your support, the school has grown from 50 to 1,200 students. Futures are brighter than ever for students at Real Quality Junior School where parents use Opportunity School Fee loans to keep kids in school when finances are tight. Opportunity Uganda redesigned School Fee loans to support households with uneven cash flows, which has helped farming families that are affected by seasonal cycles that can jeopardize school enrollment. Since 2013, Opportunity Uganda’s School Fee Loan portfolio has grown by 22% with 5,562 active loans as of February 28, 2015. The total value of the loan portfolio is $784,350, which will impact 17,273 students, the most of any Opportunity school fee loan program.

Real Quality Junior School’s impact ripples beyond the students with more than 90 staff jobs and countless more jobs created within the surrounding community. Teachers at Real Quality Junior School are empowered with the right tools to help students succeed—they are inspired to make a lasting difference. And this is just one of more than 1,000 schools you are helping us support globally. 

Links:

• Opportunity International Blog

2014 was year of collaboration and growth for Opportunity Uganda, which closed the year with active loans to 28,982 entrepreneurs. But loans are only one of the tools Opportunity continues to use to empower people living in extreme poverty.

Opportunity Uganda disbursed $2.8 million in loans to farmers who raise livestock and grow bananas, coffee, cotton, maize and sugarcane. They also collaborated with the Uganda Coffee Farmer Alliance to reach 2,500 coffee farmers and with Joseph Initiative to empower 1,000 maize farmers. A partnership with John Deere also changed the lives of several farmers who have dreamed of owning their own tractors. Opportunity Uganda financed five farmers and another 17 are eagerly awaiting approval for their tractors.

Opportunity Uganda also customized school fee loans for farmer families who earn seasonal income and struggle to keep their children in school between harvests, resulting in a 22% growth in lending over the prior year. Schools themselves were also supported through School Improvement loans which were given to 41 institutions to improve sanitation and build new classrooms. 35,250 students were positively impacted by these school improvements, and the loans helped provide numerous communities with quality educational facilities.

Ridgeway School is one of many schools that has grown as a result of school improvement loans from Opportunity. Evans founded Ridgeway Primary School in 2007 with just 100 students, holding lessons in a dilapidated wooden structure on a rented plot of land. Determined to provide a better environment for his students and his three daughters, Evans obtained a series of Opportunity International loans. As a result of his hard work and passion for education, Evans has built a boarding facility, purchased land and constructed a primary school building serving 915 students. Evans’ dream to educate Ugandan students is evident through his efforts to improve the school which has attracted highly qualified teachers and local families. His goal is to expand the school to 5,000 students and provide students with life skills and computer literacy training before they advance to secondary school.

By supporting the dreams of clients like Evans, Opportunity can empower entrepreneurs to raise themselves, their families and their communities out of poverty.