our history
Raise the Roof Academy’s education foundation traces its history back to February 1985 when at the age of 6, David Ssebulime, co-founder of RTRA, was sent away from school for failure to pay tuition fees. Months earlier, David’s father had died leaving the responsibility of caring for 11 children with David’s mother. David’s father was the sole income earner. Without the ability to pay, David, and his siblings, were turned away from school. At age 6, David started working menial jobs as a way to earn tuition fees. David worked in a brick factory which was where the African Children’s Choir found him and took him and his sister, Sarah, into their orphanage and child sponsorship program. Unfortunately, David’s other siblings did not have the same opportunity. This reality shapes our commitment to educate the whole student by building relationships and education centers that cultivate a culture of learning and offer God’s love through empowerment opportunities.
OUR BEGINNINGS
What started as a simple campaign to complete a church building in a small Ugandan village of Lusaka, has become a life-changing partnership for the people of rural Uganda and friends of Raise the Roof Academy.
In November 2005, David and Marlene Ssebulime launched the first campaign dubbed “Raise the Roof” and after 7 months of hosting various fundraisers, and offering many prayers, embarked on a journey to the Ugandan village of Lusaka to present the funds for the first roof. On this journey, their eyes were opened to a mission of forging relationships that foster stability, hope, and transformation.
In August 2008, after a few years of raising roofs and supporting other community projects, David and Marlene Ssebulime visited the village of Bwasandeku. Known to be an area rife with HIV/AIDS and alcoholism, and deemed “Home of Alcoholism” by regional leaders.
Bwasandeku was a village that needed intervention. Children were not going to school, people were still dying from HIV/AIDS, children were under the care of elderly grandparents, and the majority of the men had resigned to alcohol.
David and Marlene Ssebulime knew God had brought them there for a reason. The school doors opened in the beginning of 2011 with 30 children in a wood-shed structure. They introduced friends and family to the children and asked that they become their champions and sponsors. As soon as the first 30 children were sponsored, 30 more children were added to the program, then 60 children. RTRA now has over 1,500 students in its schools and the team continues to advocate for children and community development one household at a time.
