More Students: A Happy Challenge
Starting the 2024 school year has been a super-busy multi-month challenge for all of us involved in KCEA. It's been intense this year due to the happy challenge of enrolling many more students than previous years (34 new students in Form 1). Most students have sponsors but a few students are still in need of sponsors .
34 students in 2024 is way more than previous years
In Oct-Dec last year, John Keshe and his KCEA-Kenya community partners have been 'deluged' with girls and their families so earnestly eager for help in going to secondary school. The increased interest is partly that John (and KCEA) is getting better known/trusted. It's also due to John being able to reach out to more distant villages with the Land-Cruiser bought in 2022. This year the students come from an amazingly dispersed 22 villages (11 of which had never had KCEA-supported students). Importantly John has gotten increasingly skilled in organizing the information on the girls in such a way that Amy in KCEA-USA can pass on the information to potential sponsors.
Each student has their own unique story. John appealed to us about one late-enrolling student: "A girl and her mom came to my office this morning crying so bad saying please help us,,,go to school, her dad is an alcoholic and her mom doesn’t have a job. some of the goats this family used to have her dad sold them all for alcohol and later he ran away. nobody know where he is,,,Paris and I consult them and dropped them back home. the family is so sweet."
In January and February John has had SO much to do finalizing acceptances to schools and helping the students get to school and get settled. Then last week he arranged a support meeting "I had a good meeting with both parents and (many of the) current and new students during their five days school break, I received very positive feedback as students give good stories about their new schools,they like them
Students and family members gathered for mutual encouragement meeting last week
In short, we are tired and happy!