Interview of Elaine Kessler, Co-Founder of Save the Girls (of Uganda)

Elaine Kessler, thanks for agreeing to be interviewed about your organization, Educate the Girls, and yourself.
Here are some questions:
1. When did you and Nancy set up Educate the Girls, and why?
We incorporated in 2002 and got our exempt status from the Internal Revenue Service in 2004. But we began informally several years before that. When Nancy’s husband John Veldhuis was working in Uganda she went to visit and met a group of women in the village who had organized with the purpose of earning money to send their daughters to school. They made and sold baskets to do this, and Nancy began buying baskets there, selling them here to family and friends at her church, and telling about girls who were overlooked as far as education was concerned. Several people, including myself, volunteered to sponsor a girl’s education. I had been volunteering with Women for Women International for a number of years, and saw it almost from its beginning grow into a major nonprofit organization. So I suggested we could do something much larger than sell a few baskets and sponsor a couple of girls.
2. How did you and Nancy meet?
We were both divorced when we met when it was good to find a single friend to do things with.
3. How many women have you helped educate so far, in how many countries?
We currently work only in Uganda. We would like to expand, but we want to get our program firmly in place and successful before we expand.
We have helped about 40 girls and young women so far.
4. Why is it “better” or more urgent or more important to educate girls or women?
It is more urgent to educate girls because they are more likely to be last in line for an education when money is an issue, as it is in this poor area. Educating girls has many benefits, not only for the girls, but for their future families and communities as well. Educated girls are more likely to seek health care and less likely to marry too early, before their bodies are ready to bear children. They will be more likely to have prenatal care and their children will probably receive health care. Their children will also go to school. And money that an educated woman earns will go towards their family’s welfare, rather than be spent in cafes, according to some of the women I have met. They will also have AIDS education.
5. What sort of education do you provide, who provides it?
We provide funding for primary and secondary school education. The students choose their schools, which are usually Anglican, Catholic, or Muslim.
6. Can you tell me a few instances where education has saved or changed a woman’s life.
When the woman’s group we work with, in the village of Kononi, learned of a 14-year-old girl from a poverty-stricken girl who was “sold” into marriage with an older man, the women raised the money to “buy” her back and put her in school.
7. Specifically about Uganda, where you are going, it has had such a bad reputation as the country of dictator Idi Amin. As a foreign owned and operated non-governmental organization working in Uganda, how much red tape do you have to deal with? Was it difficult to get in and is it difficult to send money, to operate on a daily basis? Is there much interference from central government or regional authorities?
I have not had to deal with red tape in Uganda; we have a representative who handles everything there. I have not heard of any problems. The government is pro-education, and very much for girls being educated. We wire money from our bank here to a bank in Uganda. In the U.S. our organization is run by volunteers, but our Uganda representative is not a volunteer. The money we receive goes from our organization to Uganda and is distributed to the women to pay the girls’ school fees. It does not go through any third party.
8. What sort of culture towards women, and women working outside the home, do you think Uganda has?
Women’s status is not on the same level as women here. The women’s group we work with has a man at the head, because it is felt officials will more readily deal with him. There is not the same force to require men to support their children if their marriage is not intact, or if they take another wife—polygamy is legal—and begin another family.
9. Are they rural or urban based women, or which ethnicity or tribe?
They are rural women, often without the education they seek for their daughters. I have not heard people speak of tribes, so I don’t know if that is a great issue for them.
10. Which particular scholarship, for which particular recipient, are you most proud of?
I am most proud of Annet, a girl I helped sponsor in secondary school. She was told by her local school that she should find a more challenging school, and she did—and continued to find even more challenging schools. She wanted a government scholarship to Makere University, but when her time came the government had cut back on the number of scholarships it gave. She went to see the king of Buganda to make her case and she got her scholarship.
11. Do you provide subjects such as basic computer use, accounting etc.
I don’t think it is part of the secondary school curriculum, but I know computer courses are available during school breaks.
12. As an artist myself, I am particularly interested in the basket makers.
What are the baskets made of? How long does it take to make a basket the diameter of a dinner plate?
The baskets are made of sisal, and dyed with natural dyes. It probably takes a day or more, although it probably depends on making the dye, obtaining the sisal, etc.
13. What would you say is the “tipping point” in terms of US $, that is needed for a girl to get a High School diploma?
School fees are about $200 a year for primary school, and around $450 for secondary school, which is often a boarding school, so the girl will need bedding, all toiletries, etc. in addition to school supplies.
14. For the benefit of overseas based readers, can you explain briefly what 501 (C 3) status in the USA means?
The 501(c)(3) status is the section of our tax code that allows contributions to charities to be deducted from income tax.
Thank you, Elaine.