Kenya Connect

Mwongeli ("Janet") is the fifth born child in a family of six children. Her father passed on in 2003 leaving the burden of educating and supporting the children to their mother who is a peasant farmer. Although four of her elder siblings managed to go through secondary education through support of well-wishers, there is still a huge outstanding fees balance in the secondary school where they attended. Consequently, they never got their secondary school certificates meaning they could not proceed with further education nor get any formal employment. They do casual work for a living to support their mother in bringing up the family. Despite her humble background Mwongeli is a very confident and hardworking girl who passed well her primary education at Miini Primary School and was top in her school with 369 marks. She has been admitted to join form one at Kathiiani Girls secondary school, which is a national school. All through her primary education, she has been top in class and has won many academic prizes. She loves school because she says she strongly believes that education is an important tool to empower her to be successful in life. She wants to study hard to realize her dream and become a pilot one-day. At her age, she understands the consequences of lack of education and so one of her passions is to be successful in life so she could help her family as well as other children in her community to gain good education.

Christine is the firstborn in a family of two. Her mother is a single parent and the sole breadwinner of the family. Christine completed her primary education in 2020 and was unable to join secondary school due to lack of school fees. She decided to repeat grade eight with great hopes of doing much better. And joining high school. Despite the challenges, she emerged the best student in her school. She aspires to be a neurosurgeon so she could save the lives of many. Christine believes that winners never quit and quitters never win. She loves reading and telling stories

Mercy is an orphan child in a family of three children. She is the first born in her family and she together with her two young sisters live with their grand parents. Her late mother was single and the sole breadwinner of the family but passed on in 2015. Mercy currently risks dropping out of school because there is no one to pay her school fees. Despite this challenge, Mercy is optimistic and very determined to complete her secondary education and become an electrical engineer in future. She believes that education is the key to a successful life.

Matata is a daring young boy who believes that success is often achieved by those who don’t know that failure is inevitable. He is the last born in a family of four. His parents are unemployed and largely depend on subsistence farming, which has been negatively affected by frequent severe droughts. Most of the rural roads in his village are very impassable and this has pushed him towards achieving his dream of becoming an engineer. Since Matata was a young boy, he has always liked playing football not only at home but also in school and he was the goalkeeper for his school team.

Anthony is the third-born child in a family of four. He lives with both his parents who are casual labourers and are struggling to cater for the needs of their family. He loves drawing and he looks forward to pursuing a career in electrical engineering.

Fiona is the last born in a family of three. She lives with both her parents who are casual labourers. Her mother had a major surgery on her left hand in 2020. This made them sell part of their property to take care of the medical bills and thus reducing their income significantly and again making it very difficult for them to take care of the education bills of their children. Fiona drew her inspiration to pursue success from her Math teacher and she aspires to be a civil engineer to make contributions in the development of infrastructure in her village.