Educate Maasai kids: full high school scholarships

It has been a year full of exciting achievements for Africa SOMA scholarship winners, new and old.

Noah, our Kenya coordinator holds meetings with all scholarship winners every term break to monitor their academic achievement and discuss their high school experience. Noah provides an invaluable mentorship to our winners, discussing their goals for the future, how to cope with their workload and balance it with family responsibilities, and how they can give back to other students in their communities. Some of our scholarship winners provide tutoring on their holidays, and afterwards many go on to work in schools as assistant or full teachers.

Noah is also hard at work laying the groundwork for the 2016 scholarship competition. He is liaising with the head teachers of the ten participating primary schools in Elangata Wuas zone to confirm the number of final-year students they have who will be eligible for an Africa SOMA scholarship and to get their signed declaration of participation. In late December/early January when the results are posted, Noah will convene a meeting of all of the headteachers to review students results and pick our next four winners. Both of these winners are thrilled that their scholarships have allowed them not to miss any school due to lack of fees.

In the scholarship winners meeting this August, we heard from our scholarship winners Alex (Form 2) and Damaris (Form 4) that they are enjoying their years thus far and are getting ready for exams. Alex explained that he was able to participte in a Maasai dance team at Nakeel Boys that proceeded all the way to the National level of competitions. Damaris has had a challenging year due to a family re-location but her grades have risen over the course of the year and she is set on passing her final KCPE exam in December with flying colours. 

Our scholars now have just over a month to prepare for their end of year exams. For those in form four (the final year of high school) this year, that exam will be the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) exam. The results from this exam will determine what colleges and/or universities our scholarship winners are offered places in. We are wishing all of our scholarship winners the best of luck in their exams this December.