Somero e.V. is a winner of the Social
Committment Award of the Alumni Society
of the Friedrich- Ebert-Stiftung e.V.

The Somero scholarship

Somero supports disadvantaged children and young adults who follow their dream of education with high motivation and courage. Due to the unequal opportunities given within the educational system, every scholarship has been awarded to a girl or a young woman so far. Thereby, Somero focuses on the individual needs of the scholarship holders.

Scholarships are for:

  • young people in Uganda who have little or no access to education and who will not have educational opportunities if they are not supported;
  • young people without sufficient backing from their family or another form of social community;
  • mainly girls and young women who have even less educational opportunities due to the inequality of opportunities between the sexes.

Somero needs 90 Euros per month to support a scholarship holder in Uganda. Somero finances:

School fees and housing € 30
Food € 15
Psychosocial care € 17
Clothes, school material, hygiene € 17
Medical care € 10

The tuition fees are directly paid to the schools of the scholarship holders. Our full-time social worker who looks after the scholarship holders and coordinates the work in Uganda supplies the scholarship holders with convenience goods. Because there is no public health insurance system we provide our own insurance: every month we save a small amount of money for every scholarship holder to be able to pay for health care in case it is needed. In order to support a young person on the way to independence, comprehensive support is needed. Therefore, our scholarship holders are accompanied by a mentor who meets them at least every second week and supports the strengthening of their self-confidence and self- responsibility.

In order to follow up with the scholarship holders' progress and to adjust our support to their individual goals and needs, our social worker writes a development report about each scholarship holder three times a year. These reports are completed by the scholarship holder's families if possible.

It is our goal to support a scholarship holder until she reaches a level of education and training that enables her to live a self-determined and independent life. Therefore, the support is of a long-term nature.

All our funds are used efficiently, transparently and for the purpose of the association. At the same time, we try to keep the management costs as low as possible. As we take our principles very seriously, we pay our social worker in Uganda a fair salary. Additionally, the Ugandan voluntaries get an appropriate compensation. In order of transparency we publish our financial statements at the beginning of each year.