Welcome to the online home for Ssamba Foundation. We are a non-profit, mission-driven organization delivering support to those in need while building their capacity for development. We are a different organization and I encourage you to spend some time on our online office to understand why.
As a child born to an uneducated mother and unemployed (former civil servant) father in rural Africa, I was raised in abject poverty. I understand firsthand many of the needs of the children, youth and women served by the Ssamba Foundation.
I am Isaac Ssamba, the Founder and Executive Chairman of the Ssamba Foundation. My story is like that of many other African children. Born, brought up and educated in Mukono District to a family of 11 children, 3 step brothers, and 2 step sisters from the maternal lineage.
I went to the poorest schools in Mukono District and I was a very bright student at all levels topping classes and my entire sub-county of Nama, and I started fending for myself at 14 as a child laborer at a stone mine in my home village where I went to every evening after school.
On top of that I had to also help out at home with animals, collecting water and walking barefooted 16 km a day just to get to school and back. On finishing my high school education, I went on to study Civil Engineering, and I raised school fees from working at local buildings (unfortunately I did not complete this course due to lack of enough tuition). I diverted to Psychosocial Counselling and Photography studies.
So instead of betraying my chosen career for which I had worked so hard to train, I founded the Ssamba Foundation. To fund the operations, we lead groups of ‘volunteers’ out to villages which have received little or no aid at all and initiate sustainable projects.
From our humble beginnings in 2006, we have established several projects in Mukono district and across the country where we have partnered with very many local organizations. Ssamba Foundation began in 2006, I began a small outreach crafts and feeding project with vulnerable women living with HIV/AIDS and their affected families.
In the years since, our programs have expanded to cover a broad range of sustainable community development programs. Our approach to programming is holistic, responsive, and driven by the needs of the communities we serve. Our programs are diverse because the needs of vulnerable rural communities are.
We seek to empower vulnerable rural communities towards sustainability, but also recognize immediate needs demand immediate relief. In everything we have achieved international volunteers have been pivotal and the backbone of our success.
Through these community development programs, by God’s grace, we have been able to serve hundreds of vulnerable people, children and communities in rural Uganda, lifting individuals and families out of extreme poverty.
The beneficiaries of the organization and I express our sincere thanks to the many people who have made immense contributions and given so much assistance to Ssamba Foundation since its inception. In my life I have served in various capacities in my community, represented Mukono on many regional and international platforms and served on several Executive Boards of NGOs in Uganda.
But no other work I have done is equal in importance to that of providing support to little children, vulnerable youth and women. Be it through education, healthcare, and training or protecting the environment, I am driven by heart, passion, and a desire to see positive change across Uganda.
Thank you for taking the time to learn more about Ssamba Foundation’s vital mission. Please consider signing up to join Uganda volunteer program, donate to support our projects, or help us to raise the much needed funds to implement an income generating venture for the organization.
Yours in service,
Isaac Ssamba (Mr.)
Founder & Executive Chairman
Ssamba Foundation (2006)