Changing lives through education
Jua Ruth James is a 16 year old girl from Pagirinya refugee settlement in northern Uganda. She is currently enrolled in the first year of secondary school. Thanks to the support of Heart Ministries’ Education Program is achieving her dream of completing her studies.
Here is her story.
“Due to the conflicts in our country, I left South Sudan with my parents in 2016 and came to Uganda as refugees and settled in Pagirinya. At that time, I was young, just seven years old, and there was little I could remember about my country.
My parents took me to Pagirinya One primary school to join primary one and later in 2019, I was taken to Eden primary school, a nearby private school, where I joined primary 4. However, because of financial problems, I couldn’t continue in Eden, so my parents enrolled me at Pagirinya Integrated primary school. Once things normalized, they took me back to Eden so that I could get better results. But again, after some time, school fees became a problem. My parents had to beg the school administration to allow me to continue with my studies as they looked for my fees.
To my surprise, when we were almost to sit for our primary leaving examination (PLE), the school bursar called me to the office and informed me that no single coin was paid for my school fees and that almost shuttered my hope of sitting for PLE.
However, my parents went to school and requested the school to allow me to sit for my final examination with a promise of looking for the fees, since the family was financially down because my father had some eye problem which also required finance to take care of, and had no money since he wasn’t working and therefore, I had no hopes of joining secondary school.
In that dark moment, Heart Ministries’ scholarship program came as a big relief to me, because it gave me the opportunity to continue with my education, without that support, I would have been at home because there was no chance for me to continue with my studies.
My focus is to have good results and maintain the scholarship, because it is my only opportunity to keep me in school”.
Every year, Heart Ministries supports about 30 students like Jua Ruth James, providing scholarships to cover school expenses, mentoring, and tutoring until they complete secondary education.
Here are some messages of gratitude for all the supporters who make this pogram possible.
