Educating Impoverished Children in Kenya

This is one of the campaigns that we have really poured our hearts and sweat into, partly because Hifadhi Africa’s founding principal is fighting poverty through educational empowerment and transforming human experiences through capacity building and life skills impartment. That, and the fact that the great Robert, fondly known as Bob, personally initiated and campaigned for it, 2 years ago.

7 years ago, Hifadhi Africa and Bob partnered to admit Kampi to United States International University. Kampi is an orphan who grew up under impoverished conditions. He was not meant to graduate. He lacked fees support. He lacked a place to sleep and food to eat. He lacked clothes to wear. He couldn’t use university library resources. He only attended classes because either Bob or Hifadhi Africa made that extra sacrifice. It took Kampi 7 years for what is 4 years undergraduate course for the rest of his schoolmates. He persevered, worked hard, and listened to Bob and Hifadhi Africa. We offered him an internship at our Nairobi office, but even then, much needed to be done. To graduate, Kampi had to pay school fees.

In March and July, we received $1,386 and $144 donations from Maxine, Patricia, and Andrew. USIU charges $4,635 for its Bachelor of Arts in International Relations. We lumped the money together and recalled Kampi from a 2-year deferment in his rural home of East Pokot to travel to Nairobi for his graduation. He graduated on 25^th September 2021, among 1,517 graduands at the USIU-Africa’s 43rd Commencement Ceremony.

Appreciating that graduation is a major accomplishment that should be marked with pomp and circumstance, Hifadhi Africa threw Kampi an after-graduation party. Kampi puts it himself, “it’s been through determination, hard work, resilience, humility, struggles, discipline and trusting the process. Chasing a dream requires effort, passion, dedication, focus, and hard work. Through support from so many people, so I have not met nor are related, I have walked the talk and is now oozing with pride.”

Hifadhi Africa has offered Kampi a fully paid full-time job while Christine, wife to the late Rotarian Bob, has offered to give Kampi a financial gift.

Bursary Allocation and Upkeep to Bright Impoverished Students

Introduction

Hifadhi Africa Organization (HAO) is a non-profit established as a development, advocacy and youth empowerment organization working in slums and arid regions to promote social empowerment, resilience and sustained prosperity through community-centered approaches. HAO’s focus is collaboration with underprivileged and marginalized communities in an effort to empower them to identify cause problems and enable them to find appropriate solutions to overcome poverty and dependence.

The Project Funds

Hifadhi Africa Organization received a total of Kes.95,145.60($932.80) from GlobalGiving’s Educating Impoverished Children in Kenya (37957) Project on 27^th March, 2021. The money was received between April 24^th 2019 and 25^th September 2020 in trenches of $271, $153 and $508.50. Due to insufficiency, we accumulated the funds.

This project provided educational fee support to 5 high school students in East Pokot to further their education. All the beneficiaries had tens of thousands in arrears. East Pokot has 4% literacy and 60% of children never attend school in their lifetime. Donations directly funded scholarships, scholastic materials, mentorship, upkeep and transport. Beneficiaries are 5 students living with destitute parents.

Below is the projection of all the beneficiary students’ fees covered by this project funding.

KENYA HIGH SCHOOL - 19,000. Bursary fees support for one student.

BARPELLO HIGH SCHOOL - 76,000. Bursary fees support for four students.

The Mentorships and Beneficiaries Engagement

The beneficiaries expressed gratitude for their involvement in this project. The mentorship sessions involved a lot of excitement and acceptance. The project was a success. Below are key achievements realized from the project;

a). Life lessons: HAO is a young organization led by energetic professionals whose academic journeys are a living testimony of struggle to achieve a basic education. Through interaction with the HAO Team, the students were couched on basic life skills such as personal discipline, innovation and living a life with purpose. The greatest challenge facing the teens is peer pressure; from intensive off-class discussions, the students shared individual challenges with the HAO Team in honesty. Detailed advice on how to instill personal discipline to acquire academic success was given.

b). Academic Tutoring: HAO Team dedicated 6 hours per week to develop strategies towards youth-driven intergenerational dialogue on education that provides a non-hierarchical platform to the youth to interact, discuss and debate critical issues that concern the future. The interaction between education and the broader societal (social, political, economic) and natural systems (climate, biodiversity and the broader planetary systems), were explored in these discussions.

c). Social interaction: The stereotype of the pastoral dwellers is a key factor of marginalization in Kenya. For HAO, students living with poor rural parents deserve a dignified environment. It is with such understanding that Hifadhi Africa dedicated to creating a platform for equal opportunities especially to poor bright students through school fees payment. The beneficiary students showcased a great sense of interaction and self-esteem. We encouraged them to always express themselves - that such acts within their academic space create the much-needed equilibrium between the haves and the haves not. Social interaction helps us to understand our society as a foundation to pursue our goals regardless of status.

Observable need

From the interactions with these students, HAO Team observed the great need for hygiene items for girls. The provision of simple sanitary pads has a drastic positive impact on reducing girls' absenteeism during periods.

Links:

• Hifadhi Africa's Effort to Retain Girls in Schools