By Denise Soltis and Sharon | Executive Director and Project Assistant
In March and April of this year I made my first visit as Executive Director to Global Interfaith Partnership's Umoja Project in Kenya. During my visit at the very first function I attended, I met Sharon, a Project Assistant Leader. Sharon is a vivacious young girl and strong leader. I was fortunate to spend quite a great deal of time with Sharon during school visits, primary school student home visits, and various functions that were designed to help me understand the work and the impact of the Umoja Project in Chulaimbo, Kenya.
One of our last days together, Sharon handed me two letters. One letter was a personal letter to me, sharing her hopes and dreams for the Umoja Project. The second was an open letter of thanks to Global Interfaith Partnership. I thought I would share her letter and more of her story with you in our project report. You can see from her letter, she feels like the Umoja Project "saved her from the streets." Sharon has been an Umoja scholar since primary school when she participated in the school lunch program. She scored well enough on her KCPE exams to be supported for secondary school (high school). She attended St. George Secondary School and scored well on her KCSE exams. She will be finishing her year as Project Assistant Leader this month and helping to train the next group of project assistants. She plans to attend college to become a surveyor. She did research into careers and discovered that surveyors were in demand in Kenya and that she would be able to find a position shortly after finishing her degree.
Sharon is just one student Umoja Project has supported on a path to a better future. Each year we have more students who do well on their KCPE exams than we can support. This year we had 60 students finish above 260, a high score on the comprehensive test. Out of those 60, 12 were funded by other organizations, and we funded 35 students. We were able to increase our number from 25 to 35 because we received seven scholarships from Kenyans, including one individual donor and a small grant. Clearly, we still have a gap.
It is our dream that all of our students who qualify can attend secondary school. Please help us make that dream and dreams of students like Sharon come true!
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