Sponsorship until success do us part

Every December, an education charity organisation called Teach a Child (TaC) Africa, holds its annual gathering in Ukwala town, during which sponsors, guardians, and the young beneficiaries meet in one room to discuss the successes and challenges of the year.

It is also during the gathering that TaC Africa invite career counsellors and advisers to give talks to the students under their sponsorship and mentorship.
Last December’s event was, however, different. It became the opportunity to discuss tough home truths about scholarships. The big question became: At what point do you disengage as a sponsor?

The question had arisen from the fact that TaC’s first beneficiaries, all of them from underprivileged backgrounds, had completed secondary school.

What then to do with those who wouldn’t qualify to join university and get Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) support?

Left alone at that stage, chances are many would slide back to poverty, and that would beat TaC’s purpose.

In 2008, TaC Africa, which had just been registered a year before in the UK by Pamela Ohonde, a Kenyan who now lives in Denmark, initiated a pilot project to raise funds and sponsor young girls and boys through secondary education.

The sponsorship targeted needy lads and lasses in Nyanza Province, who had lost their parents as a result of Aids. The project started with two beneficiaries.

Nancy Adhiambo was one of them. TaC Africa paid for her school fees and upkeep, and in 2010, she sat for Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) exam and passed with a B.

She is now awaiting to join Moi University, where she has been admitted to study economics.

When we met her at St Francis Rangala Girls school, which is where she studied and the same venue TaC Africa was holding its annual gathering, she was visibly excited.

“I was determined to make it to university through the regular programmes and that is how I chose to forget about my woes as an orphan and focus on my future. It was a tough task, yes, but I was determined to give it my all,” she said.

“I want to rise and also give back to the same people who helped me so that they can start another fund for higher education,” she added. That, indeed, was the challenge that participants at the December 27 to 29 TaC gathering sought to tackle.

Currently, the organisation supports 44 students in different secondary schools in Nyanza Province. The beneficiaries not only gain access to education, but also to basic needs, social networks, and counselling.

Twenty-one of these students will be finishing their education this year. Hopefully, a good number will qualify to join university under the regular programmes and get support from HELB as is expected concerning Adhiambo.

But some may not. What to do with this group, was the concern TaC Kenya director, Margaret Oriaro, highlighted.

“The current challenge is, after form four, what do we offer them? That is why we are brainstorming on the next avenues to keep them occupied, so that they do not slacken in their progress,” she said.

According to TaC’s coordinator William Ohonde, the organisation is therefore trying to find institutions that can take in the completing students and offer them jobs, or support them through college or universities.
Tac is also discussing other ways of continuing to support as much as necessary.

“We need them to be involved in various activities, such as farming, so that they are not idle, or enrol them for short courses because these can enable them earn an income in the end,” he notes.
This concern not only arises from the need to see beneficiaries succeed in life before letting them go, but also from the emotional connection that TaC has developed with the students under their support over the years.