Millions of dollars in scholarship funding is available to help students from developing countries attend some of the top universities in the world. Unfortunately, there are currently several barriers that limit the vast majority of students from even having a chance to apply for this funding.
First, if a child cannot afford to attend secondary school, they will never be able to apply for university scholarships. This is a major problem in Uganda, where less than 25% of children are able to attend secondary school. [1] Most students simply cannot afford to continue past primary school.
Second, many students cannot access a computer to apply for the scholarship. In Uganda, less than 4% of households own a computer. This often makes applying for a scholarship impossible, as applications usually must be completed online.
Third, scholarships have applications fees. The translation, certification and application fees for scholarships can often costs hundreds of dollars. Many Ugandans live on a few dollars a day and cannot afford these fees.
Finally, students are often unaware of the scholarships available. In many cases, the only students who apply for scholarships are those attending the very best and most expensive secondary schools. This is because these secondary schools have designated staff to identify international scholarship opportunities for the students and help them apply.
Because of these barriers, it is often only the children born to the wealthiest families who will have a chance to receive scholarship funding. This means that scholarships intended to target poorer countries are often only accessible to a small minority of those countries’ wealthiest people. This can actually deepen the inequality within countries, which is a major problem in Africa.[2]
#SlumtoScholar aims to change this. Every time a student in the Slum to Scholar program graduates secondary school, a team of Scholarship Experts provides that student with access to a computer and matches the student with potential university scholarships. All university scholarships identified by the team of scholarship experts cover 4 years of university tuition, accommodation, living expenses, medical insurance and round-trip flights.
These scholarships are valued at up to $200,000 USD. This means every time your donations to Slum to Scholar pay for a student to finish secondary school, that student has a chance to multiply those donations by up to 80 times by applying to one of these scholarships.
[1] Uganda Bureau of Statistics (2018) Primary School Enrolment, Completion Rate and Transition Rate to S.1 by Class and Sex (2013 – 2017). Government of Uganda. DOI: https://www.ubos.org/explore-statistics/21/
[2] See the UNCTAD 2020 Report, which has reported that 10 of the top 20 most unequal countries in the world are actually located in Africa.
Slum to Scholar 