Pastor Moses Mukisa, lead Pastor at Worship Harvest Ministries which has locations in Kampala, Entebbe among other areas made forty two (42) years of age on 29 March 2018.
However, a year ago Mukisa decided he’d had enough Birthday celebrations that were all about him.
“I needed my life to continue counting for some things, even as I celebrated the passing of every year. I decided to have a dinner and asked all my friends to give a cash gift to a College Fund instead of buying me a Birthday gift,” he says.
Currently, Pastor Mukisa is funding five students through various Universities across the country.
The architect and gospel artiste explains that the College Fund is an initiative to change communities with one college degree at a time.
“We help college students who are struggling financially to finish their degrees by helping pay their tuition – All it’s taken to change the destinies of these wonderful people are gifts from people that would have otherwise bought me more stuff,” he says.
The initiative works in such a way that the students can pay back the money after they graduate and start earning.
According to Pastor Mukisa, this is aimed at helping the fund grow and become self sustaining eventually.
“It’s such a blessing to hear the stories of life change that this small effort is starting to catalyze,” he says.
Pr Mukisa’s life story is no different as he had to walk though thick and thin to graduate – at the same time supporting his siblings, mother after their father was murdered in 1984.
Ruth Mirembe, one of the beneficiaries of the fund graduated on 2nd December 2017 with CGPA of 3.5 in Clinical Medicine and Community Health.
Mirembe’s father in 2014 lost his job after a very bad accident and months later his property to con men.
“My mother is a trained primary school teacher who left teaching practice for personal businesses some years back – She stepped into his shoes and become the sole provider; starting from father’s medical bills to basic needs for both us and her mother and finally tuition for 6 children,” she says.
As a result, Mirembe thought of quitting school but her mother strengthened her and resorted to loans for the youngsters to stay in school.
“I surely don’t know anyone close to us that didn’t give us a loan! Loans became like a constant deep thorn in the flesh as we had failed to clear most of the bills here and there. Being the first born I had to look for plans that could help mum but it all didn’t quite work. In 2016 my tuition fees rose from Ugx 2,800,000 to Ugx 3,200,000 – We had lost most of our relationships due to delayed loans payments,” she says.
“In 2017, in my last year of clinical medicine, tired of the accumulating loans and the condition in which my mum was (Mum faced many arrest threats, she literally left home at dawn and returned late at night so she could avoid being arrested) I started to lose hope again,” she says.
It was then that Mirembe, after going through various avenues including Harvest Finance loan, saw hope when Pastor Mosze reached out to her and told me about the College Fund – and how he thought she would benefit from it.
“The College Fund cleared my tuition and I was able to successfully do all my papers,” Mirembe says.
By Staff Writer.
