Keep Benja's Hope Alive in Kenya

Maggie is one the students of Elimu’s Cisco Networking Academy in Malindi that we are so proud of! She joined the Elimu Cisco Networking Academy to broaden her IT knowledge because she wishes to pursue an IT-oriented career.

But due COVID-19, we had to send Maggie and all 30 of our Cisco students home, just when they were getting going with this course in March! Our instructor worked diligently to keep in touch with our students and even caught up with some of them at her home. Visit Maggie he found a clear indication of disruption. With Kenyan girls, house chores are a mandatory duty, and with people ‘staying at home’, there was much to be done. Maggie took it in stride. She adapted and found ways to create time for her personal studies. After the indefinite closure of Elimu Resource Centre, she really wanted to continue learning. She didn’t have access to a laptop but was able to get hold of a tablet.

“Using the tablet was a bit tedious because of the small fonts so I was forced to keep zooming in and out hence consuming a lot of time. Also the Cisco pages didn’t fit on the screen so I would keep scrolling left and right.” she said. Later on, she did get access to a laptop but still her problems weren’t completely solved. The internet is expensive so she couldn’t get much time and the connection is extremely slow. By August, she had only managed to finish one chapter of her course.

Last week, the government allowed vocational training institutions to open again under strict COVID-19 protocols. Elimu was allowed to open our IT lab and call our Cisco students back.

Her tenacious nature is paying off. She’s back at ERC to finish her IT course. We look forward to giving her opportunities to practice what she has learned online in the weeks ahead. 

You can help us give girls like Maggie IT skills to prepare her for future work with a donation via this website.