Over the next seven years, 120 students -many of them from Sub-Saharan Africa and other parts of the world in need of careful and strategic development- will be the recipients of a scholarship program designed by the MasterCard Foundation and EARTH University. The students will learn subjects crucial to their communities, such as sustainable agriculture, natural resource management and community development.

The students will be selected from communities in Africa, Latin America and The Caribbean.

The partnership is part of The MasterCard Foundation’s Youth Learning Program, which works with institutions like EARTH University to enable young people in developing countries to make successful transitions to the workforce and actively engage with their communities.

The basis for this scholarship initiative is the positive impact that an education at EARTH University in Costa Rica has had in Uganda. Kalema Andrew Joseph graduated from EARTH in 2004 and worked in the Export Promotion of Organic Products from Africa (EPOPA) office in his native country. He then worked in a similar capacity at the Louis Bolk Institute, helping farmers grow and market their products in the lucrative export markets. After working for these organizations, Kalema put the entrepreneurial skills learned in Costa Rica to good use implementing a successful program for the production of bioferments, bokashi, micro-organisms and organic fertilizers among two coffee producing associations and one cocoa association in Uganda.

Kalema now looks after his own sustainable pineapple and passion fruit farm.

The new partnership between the MasterCard Foundation and EARTH University aims to produce more success stories such as Kalema’s among the 120 students who will receive scholarships. Costa Rica is a developing country where we tend to take for granted our agricultural and education heritage, without stopping to realize that other less fortunate regions of the world are struggling even harder to develop.

This scholarship program is valued at $19.5 million. To learn more about it or to make a donation, please visit the web sites of EARTH University and the MasterCard Foundation.