It was an ordinary event that happens to millions of people, all around the world, all the time: the first day of high school. Last month, six students in Nakuru Kenya took their turn, putting on new uniforms and moving into the dorms that would be their new home for four years. For these students, high school had seemed almost impossible -- more a dream than a wish. But these students were dreamers, the type of people that work hard at a seemingly impossible task, hoping that something will turn up. And something did. After completing eighth grade at the top of their class, each was selected to receive a scholarship from World Scholarship Initiative fully paying for attendance at a top boarding high school. For them, the first day of high school was a beginning of something, but they also had achieved something tremendous just to be there.
Allan and Henry
Eunice, Yvonne, Mercy, and Lilian
Eunice comes from her family home in East Pokot, which is an arid and rural area of Kenya. Her community kept goats and cows and tended small vegetable plots. She traveled far to school and had to balance completing her school work with helping her mother prepare food, clean, fetch water and firewood, and all the other chores of daily life. She lived in a house without electricity or running water and spent most days without shoes. It was a life with struggle.
Eunice with her parents when she was awarded the scholarship
Eunice has the same story as all WSI students. She is bright and applies herself at school with the dream of earning an education that will better her life and assist her family and her community.
Now Eunice is attending an excellent high school, putting that dream within reach. She and all other WSI students are deeply grateful to WSI supporters for this life changing gift.