The GRACE Scholarship Program
A seat in the classroom for East Africa’s brightest students
Across East Africa, secondary school is not free. For the poorest families, that single fact closes the door on their brightest children. GRACE opens it again.
The problem, plainly
Families across East Africa pay tuition for secondary school. A family with unstable income — or no income at all — simply cannot pay it, no matter how gifted their child is. In Rwanda, where GRACE began, scholars come from households in Ubudehe categories D and E — the bottom two tiers of the national socio-economic rating: families with no assets and no reliable way to earn. As the program expands, we hold the same standard of documented deepest need in every country we serve.
Without help, these students leave school at the end of primary — not for lack of ability, but for lack of a fee. With help, they finish secondary school and carry their families with them.
How scholars are chosen
GRACE is publicly available and openly assessed. Applicants must demonstrate three things:
1. Academic potential. The scholarship rewards students who have already shown they can make the most of a classroom.
2. Financial need. Documented deepest need — in Rwanda, an Ubudehe rating in category D or E; the families for whom fees are simply impossible.
3. Christian commitment. In keeping with our registered charitable purpose, scholars are active participants in a local congregation and embrace the five principles that shape our work: truth, strength, love, fellowship, and outreach.
Selection decisions are made locally by people who know the schools and the families, under criteria set and overseen by our Board. Final allocation of all scholarship funds rests with the Board of Directors, as Canadian charity law requires.
What your partnership does
Scholarship gifts cover the real costs of keeping a student in school — tuition and school exit-exam fees first, and the essentials that make attendance possible. A monthly gift is the most powerful way to give here, because a scholar’s need does not arrive once; it arrives every term, every year, until graduation day.
We tell you plainly where the program stands: in 2024, GRACE supported three students; today we are walking with our main scholar through his third year of secondary school. In 2026 we are working to expand the program in Rwanda and exploring its first scholarships in Tanzania. The numbers are small and the commitment is deep — each scholar is known, prayed for, and seen through.
This is the quiet mathematics of mission: faithful Canadian households, each giving what they can each month, and children from the poorest homes in East Africa walking across a graduation stage.
