Educate

by Fred Sadia This is not a story of qualified physicians operating in slums. It’s an account of a slum that is producing doctors year after year, young men and women who have overcome all odds to be able to dress in brilliant white lab coats with stethoscopes hanging around their necks. It’s the dream of most Kenyan children to become doctors and study medicine, but because of the high cost of the programs most families cannot afford to send their children.

by Fred Sadia The dates have been set, the preparations are in high gear, and the graduates are ready to embrace the moment…it’s all systems go for the 2018 graduation ceremonies! In Kenya, the Christmas season is always accompanied by graduation parties, as the month of December is when most colleges around the country hold commencements. Families travel from rural areas to grace these occasions all over the country. It’s always a scene worth admiring: various communities dressed in their traditional regalia, thronging school courtyards, ready to witness their sons and daughters put on the caps of academic brilliance.

Benard in his graduation gown Kenya has more qualified professionals in the workforce this January, thanks to Ndoto. Among our college graduates, there’s at least one more engineer ready to be part of developing his country who wouldn’t have his degree otherwise. Benard O. found Ndoto three years ago when he had dropped out of college after his second year of a five-year electrical engineering degree. He was from a single-parent household and there weren’t enough funds to see him, the only male in his family to make it past 8th grade, any further.

Geoffrey, a high school student, sponsored by Ndoto to go to a nationally ranked high school, received an opportunity to go to Morocco.  Upon his return, he wrote a story telling us about his experience. If he had not been able to go to his high school, he would have not received this opportunity. This is the kind of change and opportunity that sponsorship through Ndoto is providing students from Obunga with.

A couple of months ago, Mama Bon and I (Moses) set out on a mission to visit three schools in one day and spend time with five Ndoto students. We started out the two hour journey just after 10am to a town called Siaya by matatu (a van taxi). I was excited at the thought of seeing the young, dear, famous Lawi and his sweet older sister, Molly, at the first school.