When Aciro Lucy returns to school at the start of next term, she will be entering her final year of university as a candidate for her Bachelor’s of Science in economics. She is currently searching for an internship in Kampala, the capital city of Uganda, that will give her real life experience in her field of study.
Lucy, a student a Gulu University, was elected last year to serve as the coordinator of the university’s Legacy Scholarship Program (LSP) students. She was also elected by the wider university community to serve as the women’s representative for the student’s guild.
“This extends the voices of women,” she says. “The competition was steep, but I emerged the best candidate.”
Aciro Lucy is succeeding both within academics and leadership opportunities at Gulu University.
Being able to “send people’s voices” and represent her community’s needs has increased Lucy’s interest in potentially continuing her involvement in politics after completing her course. If she does so, she is intent on making sure the field of politics is fair and truly represents the wishes and needs of the people.
“I love politics, only sometimes the way people take politics is different. People make it dirty…because of competition. But if it is a clean competition where it is free and fair, if people love you, you go through and it is fine. It is really good to stand up and share people’s voices,” she said.
During her time as a member of the Legacy Scholarship Program, Lucy has learned that she can play a very strong role in giving back to her community. She says that many students, all thankful for their time with LSP, see the opportunity they have received for advanced education as a reason to give back and support other young people following behind them.
“If we bring ourselves and part of our money in a pool we can still raise funds to help those behind us and continue supporting them,” she said.
Lucy, like many other students, chose to look for an internship opportunity to pursue during the school break in order to increase her level of experience and to make herself better qualified for jobs down the road. She is continually thankful for her acceptance to LSP. After completing secondary school under the sponsorship of another organization, she joined the Legacy Scholarship Program scheme after her admission to university.
“When I got admission for my course, [the other organization] told me it was too expensive to them. There was no way, but someone told me about Invisible Children. I had no hope completely. I found that there were very many students who wanted a scholarship people, too many who wanted to same thing. I prayed to God and my name came out,” she said.
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