By Kate Lapides-Black | For the Good Communications Director
In December 2020, you contributed to For the Good through GlobalGiving, support which helped fund our three core programs, all of which continue today. Below is an update on the powerful impact your support helped create:
Primary School Enrollments: Our team of young Team Angaza interns has grown from four in 2019-2021 to a powerful group of 11 young Maasai women working to enroll children from over 25 villages into 17 different primary schools. These interns have enrolled over 600 children into classrooms in the Loita Hills since schools reopened in 2021 after COVID-closures. They also follow up to ensure children are staying in classrooms by visiting with local teachers and families to identify and find solutions to any barriers that might be preventing their children’s continued attendance.
Secondary Schools: We significantly intensified our focus on our secondary school program in 2022 in response to a policy change from the Kenyan government that requires all new secondary schools have four classrooms, a laboratory, and an administrative space before they can become officially registered and receive government support. Previously, schools were able to open in any physical space, get registered and acquire government support after just one year and grow slowly with time and each new incoming class.
At the time of this policy change, we had already launched four new day secondary schools in the villages of Mausa, Morijo, Olorte and Olmesutie. Ensuring these four schools get fully built out in 2023 so they can become registered and gain government support has become a high priority for us.These day schools are especially critical in remote rural regions like the Loita Hills where families experience high rates of poverty –– and some of the highest teen pregnancy rates across Kenya (40%). Day schools are 1/8th the cost of boarding schools, will accept any child regardless of their score on the KCPE, Kenya’s secondary school entrance exam, and provide an option to continue school for girls that have babies.
The lower cost and increased accessibility of day schools means that proximity to them can change everything for countless girls like Nashipae, who was the highest scoring girl in the Loita Hills on Kenya’s high school entrance exam but lost her chance to go to a prestigious boarding school after becoming pregnant. Thankfully, a day school we started with the community of Morijo, the village where Nashipae now lives, had recently opened and she was able to re-enroll in high school. She can now take classes during the day and return 2KM home each night to take care of her baby. Nashipae is now completing her first year of high school.
Our work in Kenya truly only happens with support and caring from people like you. On behalf of countless girls in Kenya, our heartfelt thank you for your generosity and caring.
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