Education, has since its beginning, faced challenges of all kinds. There have been huge
milestones so far in Kenya with regards to providing education. New schools have been started up, even in rural areas that previously had no access to schools, or where people had to walk miles to school, has been beneficial. Additionally, institutions of higher learning have decentralized and there are numerous branches across the country that makes education more accessible.
However, there are still certain challenges. Unfortunately, the government’s recent decision to rid the country of the supported University education also creates more challenges rather than ease the burden of the rising cost of living on parents and guardians.
Recently, teachers of secondary schools in Kenya went on a nationwide protest that saw the
postponement of school opening. The demonstrations were a demand for better pay for teachers, as well as recruitment of new teachers to avert the crisis of unfair teacher to student ratio that makes it impossible for learners to learn in a healthy environment, and difficult for teachers to deliver with efficiency.
Additionally, practices like early marriages and female genital mutilations pose a threat both to the lives and to the education of many children. Even with the increases efforts of the government to eradicate FGM, it is still rampant and now medicalized FGM is on the rise. This poses a threat to women empowerment, which is also core to us as an organization. The act, always intended to control a woman, is known to precede marriage, which nips in the bud, the dreams of so many young girls, to make something of themselves other than a young bride.
Our organization’s commitment to providing relief for families is needed now more than ever.
Our goal is to play our small part in alleviating some, if not all of the burdens on the parents, and hope that the government plays its part in providing a conducive environment for both the teachers and the students. Our commitment to women has been uplifting, we trust, for the women we have worked with, as much as it has been for us.
In our mission to support education, we have over two hundred and fifty students in our care as highlighted by our April Newsletter.
For example, Cosmas Kibet, a third born in a family of eight, is one of our beneficiaries whose story, like that of a lot of our beneficiaries, is one of heartbreak and determination. When we first encountered Kemboi, we were immediately taken by his brilliance. He had sat his primary certificate education exams and performed exemplarily, but had to go back for a year and do the exams again because even though he had gotten good marks to get him into an excellent high school, his parents could not afford it. fortunately, were able to step in the second time around, and assist in paying his school fees. Unfortunately, his father abandoned the family and Kemboi was faced with the psychological and emotional anguish of being abandoned by his father. The whole family bore the pain with grace and kept life going.
A short while later, while in school, Kibet received the news of his mother’s passing, which felt
sudden and unfair. He went through a tough period of emotional pain and grief, but returned to school with even more commitment to excelling, knowing even better now, that he had nothing much to fall back on.
We understand that the increased school fees for the institutions of higher learning pose a threat to Kibet’s future but we trust that we will cross that bridge safely, when we get to it.
Gorety, a form two student at St Michaels secondary school lives with her father, who lives with a disability. Her grandmother forcefully subjected her to FGM when she was 13, which nearly cost her life. She bled excessively, and the infected wound was only treated with herbs and never taken to the hospital. This ordeal kept her out of school for a long period but she was, fortunately, able to return. She is committed to pursuing her education and changing her life and the lives of so many people for better, and to protecting other young girls from the barbaric FGM acts still being performed on girls.
Education faces so many attacks from different sides and angles and that is why we believe so much in our course, to give everyone a chance at a healthier today and a better tomorrow.
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