About

Mount Masaba High School is located in the town of Mbale, in eastern Uganda, at the base of Mt. Elgon. Founded in 2000 by a group of young professional and business people from the Mbale area, Mount Masaba is a coeducational school with 750 students, part boarding and part day.

It welcomes young people of all religions, ethnic groups, and nationalities but has a particular interest in helping Muslim girls to receive a secondary education. (Because most
early schools in Uganda were founded and run by Christian missionaries, Muslim communities have historically not had equal access to formal education.)

More than half of the school's students are now female, and it has a sizeable fraction of foreign students, mostly from neighboring Kenya but also including Tanzania, Rwanda, Congo, and Somalia. The school encourages adult women to return to school for a secondary education, a pattern that is not at all common in East Africa.

Mount Masaba High School works "to create an educated, empowered, and morally upright community," stressing the importance of commitment and hard work on the part of its students. The school offers a range of liberal arts and science subjects and is currently improving its computer-based facilities. Its Board of Directors, comprised of both women and men, includes a faculty member at Makerere University in Kampala, an official of the UN's Global Environment Facility (GEF) program in Uganda, teachers, and respected members of the local community.

Since most Ugandan families cannot afford to pay secondary school fees, and since boys are generally favored over girls, if a family can pay for the education of only some of its children, scholarships from wealthier countries can make a big difference. People in Colorado and the East Coast have been providing scholarships for students at Mount Masaba High School for the past few years.

These generally cover tuition for day students, but a few boarding students are receiving partial scholarships. Tuition for three terms (= 1 academic year) for a day student costs about US $125. Two-thirds of those who have been supported are Muslim girls.

Educate! would like to expand support for this worthy school and its deserving students. With a secondary education, young people have a wider range of opportunities for their own development, can contribute to their families' wellbeing, and can serve their communities more effectively.

Educate! also hopes to offer university scholarships for the most successful graduates from Mount Masaba, enabling them to move into professional positions. Most universities in Uganda charge about $700 per year for tuition; Makerere University in Kampala, the country's oldest and best known institution, charges about $1,200 per year. Those costs are totally out of reach for most Ugandan families, who have a total annual income of no more than $600.