By Maeve Williams | Development Associate
Loice was born in Kenya and grew up in Kibera, the largest slum in Africa. Her father was informally employed as a security guard and was the family’s breadwinner. Her mother occasionally did odd jobs to make ends meet when their father was out of work. She is the second born among four siblings. Their family struggled to survive, living hand to mouth. Loice attended school with great difficulty, sometimes staying out for a year or more because her parents couldn’t afford to pay her fees.
In 2017, RefuSHE's GEP set out to apply Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF) approaches in the program by recruiting 10% of their beneficiaries from the host community who miss opportunities to further their education because of poverty or being vulnerable. Through RefuSHE’s public outreach, Loice heard about the opportunity from a connection and applied. She had recently lost her father and knew that her prospects to continue her education were bleak given that her mother did not have a job and she had other siblings to worry about. She had also recently sat for secondary examinations, but her father’s demise affected her greatly and her results had been quite disappointing. She desperately wanted a second chance to bring her grades up.
Loice joined Level 4 in the Girls Empowerment Program (GEP) in 2017 and was one of the pioneers of GEP’s secondary school pilot program. In her first few months she struggled to adapt to the new environment. She mostly kept to herself and hardly participated in class. Eventually, she underwent intense counselling sessions with RefuSHE’s mental health workers and slowly came out of her shell and began blooming.
In 2018, her grades drastically improved and she started topping her classes. In 2019, when she sat for her secondary school leaving certificate examinations, Loice had the best overall grade in her cohort.
In 2020, Loise joined RefuSHE’s Women Ambassador Groups for mentorship, financial assistance, and livelihoods opportunities as a RefuSHE alumni. Later that year, RefuSHE recommended her for a scholarship opportunity by the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) to study Civil Engineering at a technical college because of her academic excellence and potential for success. Despite intense competition, she successful won the scholarship and started her classes early this year. Her favorite subject at GEP was Mathematics. In her civil engineering course, she has a couple of favorites. She enjoys learning Physical Science, Geo Technology and Entrepreneurship. She is grateful for the opportunity to keep learning and hopeful about her future.
Loise hopes to get a job as a civil engineer after completing her course and eventually become an entrepreneur. She hopes to be successful and build a better future for her family.
By Ariana Erickson | Executive Strategist of Engagement
By Adele Nandan | VP of Business Development and External Relations
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