In 2019 ,we birthed this idea. I  had  joined  college at Kyambogo university in the vicinity of Kampala under a national merit scholarship .But my high school friends, I had graduated with under  the Mastercard Foundation Scholars program had stopped schooling. Conversations I had with them on what else they could do, gave me a picture of what most Young  Ugandans go through every term ,every end of year, every end of education levels when their parents capabilities end. At the time all graduates were wandering on streets raising play cards with words written “we sold land to study, now give us jobs”. I felt I should drop out from school .

We started the ability online career in 2020 to get all those whose education opportunity had come to an end by working with scholarship partners to ensure that they get study opportunities and started a revolving livestock to create work for those who had completed or dropped out. At that time, Each of the 6 Cofounders contributed Ugx.150000($40) to change this harsh story . Since then, dozens of young people have continued their studies, gained livelihoods, and started small businesses.

Young people who came to our program included Young girls whose social economic background could not allow them to continue with school and their last option was to marry. There were so many, including my own sisters. Early 2022, I received a call from a parent, her 13 year old daughter had dropped out of primary school for lack of $7. The father refused to pay it because to him it was not important to educate girls. As I spoke to this mother, the only help she wanted was me to get her daughter a house keeping job in a rich man’s family in Kampala. I didn’t have any number of a rich man and for those rich men I knew, it was hard to get into their house gates.  She ain’t the only one I talked to ,another one, a 12 year old who was freeing from the  violence her mother and little siblings were going through when her drunkard father returned home in the middle of the night. This girl narrated to me how they were chased out of their  house every night and how her mother and her siblings would be battered even for no reason. As she spoke to me, she hoped that I would give her an opportunity to wash my clothes and those of my neighbors so she can meet her life needs while staying at my home.

 As I joined the world of work, I encountered so many young women whose husbands abused them daily. Their hearts were heavy with untold stories of rape, uncared pregnancies, violence and HIV infections. These women were looking for one second chance opportunity  that could open their life to new doors. They couldn’t withstand to see their children starve. These Young women were staying in roofless shelters in refugee settlements in Kiryandongo. They had no land, no job and their financial mobility couldn’t allow them find justice whenever their husbands mistreated them. Literally they were earning menially and spending it all on care of themselves, their Children and their families. Their children were getting chased from school every day and were tired of being stopped from entering the class. They used to stay at  the road side, dressed with torn trousers at the back throwing stones to the birds in the trees. Their dreams were interrupted by poverty and neglect.

Tears of the women, pain of their children and stagnation of the wandering graduates got us out of our comfort zone. We felt we could place a bet on them with high stakes. Join us to shape the future of children and young women. You don’t need everything-just a heart and the will to change one story at a time.