Kenyan Girls Start Qualifying Process for LifeNets Scholarships

First two girls accepted for full scholarships for Secondary School

Posted November 1, 2007

With a goal for granting scholarships to all eight qualified girls for the year 2008, donations have been received for our two older girls. Funding has become available so that we we will assist the remaining six girls to start Secondary School. In addition, as funding allows, older girls and women will be assisted with microeconomic development activities on a project-by-project basis. 
 

Cherono Lidya, age 15, performed well in school and received her Kenya Certificate of Primary Education in 2006, which qualified her to enter Secondary School. Because her widowed mother could not afford the school fees, she was unable to continue her education. The sixth child in a family of nine children, Cherono lives at home where she assists her mother with daily household work including the care of the younger children. Her mother is unemployed with the family subsisting on limited resources from their small scale farming efforts.

Upon learning of her selection to receive a scholarship under a special LifeNets’ Developing Nations Scholarship Program for girls attending UCG in Kenya, she expressed that she was “very happy.” Cherono says after Secondary School she wants to attend a university to study accounting so that she can get a good job and help her family. Without this scholarship opportunity, Cherono faces a hard life of continuing poverty, which encourages early marriage.

Cherono and her family live in Sotik, Rift Valley Province, a rural area near the equator in Western Kenya, best known for growing tea. She is from the Kalenjin tribe.

Jane Adhiambo Otieno, 17 years old, is the fifth child in a family of eight children. Her father, a government employee, died in 2001. While her mother got a small amount of money from the government, only her brother received any education above the government paid primary level. Jane received her Certificate of Primary Education in 2004. Because she was financially unable to continue with her schooling, she lives with her family helping her unemployed widowed mother with the family; however, her future is bleak without the opportunities that additional education can provide for her.

When informed of her selection to receive a LifeNets scholarship, Jane expressed her desire to become a doctor so that she can “help people during the times that life is in a dangerous condition.” She wants to serve others by helping to relieve their pain and suffering, she says.

Jane and her family live in Siaya, Nyanza Province, a town in western Kenya, located on agricultural land with small-scale agriculture—mainly subsistence crop farming, local businesses, livestock and fishing. She is from the Luo tribe.

John Owak, project facilitator for Kenya, states, “The life of educated girls is so different to the life of uneducated girls. Uneducated girls have a difficult life for the rest of their lives, while educated girls have a good life for the rest of their lives. Education is the key to a good life for our girls!” Because so few girls are well educated, those with university degrees are able to find good jobs in both the public and private sectors.