Kazooba Kawamara (2013)
Ntoroko District Orphan Database and Placement
For his Stronach Baccalaureate Prize project, Kazooba and his team of volunteers will locate orphans in Ntoroko, Uganda and record them into a secure database that will be used to match orphans with available social services. The secure database will be housed at the district headquarters and will include age, point of contact, and level of need. The completed database will then be used to place the orphans into existing government programs and NGO services such as healthcare, academic tutoring, psychological help, adoption, and emergency aid. There are few services to help the estimated 2 million orphans in Uganda and these services are often concentrated in cities and towns where homeless orphans are visible on the streets. But most orphans reside in the rural parts of the country like Ntoroko. The goal of this project is to make sure orphans in Ntoroko, and ultimately all of Uganda, are identified and provided with access to available services.
Letters Home
Biography
Kazooba was born in Uganda. In May 2013, he received a Bachelor of Arts degree from UC Berkeley in Political Science, with a concentration in International Relations. As a Miller Scholar, he carried out research in summer of 2012 on how the Lords Resistance Army in Northern Uganda managed to terrorize the region for so long. He is a co-founder of the Organization of African Students at Berkeley and served as Berkeley Student Ambassador for study abroad after studying abroad at Cambridge University. Before graduating from UC Berkeley with High Distinction, he attended Los Angeles Valley College where he served as the Student Body Vice President and Region President of the Student Senate for California Community Colleges. During his time in Los Angeles, he started a drive that raised money and supplies for the victims of the Haiti earthquake and the Tsunami in Japan. His post-graduation goal is to work with other young Ugandans to put the country on the right trajectory and harness the enormous potential it holds. Kazooba is also the recipient of the Alumni Leadership Award and the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship.
