Precious Sisters is a small charity that finds sponsors for academically bright girls so that they can receive a secondary education. The charity also provide mentorship for their four years at school. In Kenya, primary school education is free, but secondary education is not. Many families cannot afford the school fees and so their children do not receive secondary schooling. In such cases, girls, stay at home to do household chores, work on the land or work as “house girls “on very poor pay. They might be married off at a very young age, get pregnant as early as 13 or 14 or even resort to prostitution.
Shipston Rotary Club is sponsoring Scarlet who is 15 years old and lives with her mother on the outskirts of Nairobi. She has never known her father. Scarlet is an only child and lives with her mother in a single room that is rented. Her mother sells snacks and won’t earn consistently or much from this activity.Scarlet did well in her primary school coming top out of her year group of 130 students.
This won her a place at Maryhill which which is a large government high school about an hour north east of Nairobi. Maryhill is consistently one of the best performing schools academically in Kenya.
She has made a good start to her life in high school being placed 34th out of a class of 59.
Scarlet presented herself as a lovely girl when interviewed. She has a lovely smile and gave strong answers to questions. She made good eye contact and showed evidence of some drive, which will be good for us to work with.
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