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The Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS) is a German political foundation that works on over 100 countries in the areas of democratic strengthening, rule of law and human rights. KAS has been giving out scholarships for distance learning degrees at Uganda Martyr's University in the field of Democracy and Development Studies, and Local Governance and Human Rights for over a decade now. The aim of the programme is to enable future leaders to attain higher qualifications in the areas of governance, human rights, and democracy promotion to become drivers for positive change in their communities and their country. During the course of the programme many students from Uganda, and more recently also from South Sudan, have been able to benefit from the support given by KAS and are gradually developing a strong alumni network.

The KAS Scholarship Programme has been highly successful and beneficial in the past in granting young potentials access to higher education and democratic-value oriented degrees. However, in an assessment and tracer study from early 2014, it was noted that the full potential of the scholarship programme is not being exploited, especially in the areas of activating and supporting a lively alumni network and providing current scholarship holders as well as alumni with additional opportunities to further their skills and knowledge on the core topics related to KAS's work in Uganda and internationally. For this purpose, the annual Scholarship meeting this year is not only called to introduce and welcome the newest members of the KAS Scholarship network from the 2015 intake, but also to provide a networking platform for all the scholarship holders and alumni in a bid to build a strong and lively alumni that can be engaged by KAS and other stakeholders alike to tap into this untapped potential.

KAS aims to broaden its engagement with the Scholarship Holders and Alumni. This meeting will be one such occasion for KAS to further engage with the scholarship holders and alumni to constructively discuss avenues of improving the scholarship program as well as future corporation with KAS in the different development issues that the KAS Uganda office is involved in. The continuous feedback and other measures arrived at in meetings of this nature are aimed at providing additional relevant training and capacity building to current scholarship holders and alumni as well as building a strong network between them to support their professional development and share interesting opportunities as quick as possible with all members.