11 Kibera KCPE pupils get Sh3m scholarship

The New Year has come with a pleasant surprise for some of last year’s Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examination candidates.

Eleven of them at Nairobi’s Kibera slum, six of them girls, were on Friday given secondary education scholarships by non-profit organisation Children of Kibera Foundation (CoFK).

The organisation decided that because the pupils performed well in an environment fraught with little food and comfort as well as inadequate reading materials shows that there is a great potential that could go to waste due to poverty if not tapped.

The CoFK intends to spend an estimated Sh3.75 million on the high school studies for the bright, but poor, pupils.

“It is very sad that an additional 20 pupils may not have the opportunity to pursue their education, yet they scored over 400 (out of a possible 500) marks,” the foundation chairman, Mr Kenneth Okoth, told the Saturday Nation.

His prayer is that private companies will identify deserving cases in the slum and pay their fees, give them pocket money and do shopping for them.

“These bodies (firms) have to do something to change the face of this community and get the residents out of poverty,” he said.

The beneficiaries are mainly orphans or children from single parents. The CoFK is already sponsoring four secondary school students and will be paying all their four years’ fees.

The organisation is registered in the US and was founded by Mr Okoth, a former pupil of Kibera’s Olympic primary school. “People helped me to get where I am,” said Mr Okoth, a US-based university lecturer.

“They did not give me food; they paid my fees as they know education is important. So, I have also decided to help these children to succeed.”

Olympic’s best KCPE candidate, Philtricia Barasa Were, who scored 434 marks, is among the beneficiaries.

“I am so happy,” said the 14-year-old. “This will now make me realise my dream of becoming a doctor.”

Her father, a single parent who lost all his property in the post-election violence of early last year, said the scholarship was the only way his daughter would make it in life.

“I lost all my businesses — my chemist’s shop as well as dry-cleaning and juice-making machines during the chaos,” recalled Mr Philip Barasa. “All went up in flames.”

This forced him to cut his support for seven orphans he used to sponsor in rural schools. He was broke and was forced to share a room with a friend in Kibera’s Katwekera village.

His other children were upcountry when he enrolled Philtricia at a school in Teso district.

“I used to stay with my aunt, but after sometime, a teacher at Kibera agreed with my father and took me in,” Philtricia said.

As he lived with the friend, Mr Barasa recived Sh10,000 from an anonymous donor, and he used this to get back on his feet.

Philtricia’s potential had been noticed earlier; at one point she got an air ticket from Prime Minister Raila Odinga, also the area MP, to tour Kisumu as the mayor’s guest.

The trip and her father’s constant reminder that there was no hope apart from education made her focus sharper on studies.

Other pupils the Saturday Nation was able to trace to the studios of the community radio station, Pamoja FM, are Agripiner Amatemo, Fred Juma Onyango and John Atela.

With the sad and hopeless 2008 gone, these few chosen pupils ushered in the New Year with a great hope for a better life. “I just thank God for all this. I promise to work hard and become an aeronautical engineer,” said Fred, who scored 405 marks in KCPE.

His father, Mr John Ogada, a city security guard, was also excited. “I have five children, and all I have is a primary education certificate,” he said.

“On a salary of Sh5,000 (a month), Fred would not make it to secondary school.”

Fred remembers sleeping on an empty stomach on the eve of the exam in November.

“I promised myself that I had to pass, since I knew that someone would recognise that I have the talent,” he said.

His elder brother also wrote the exam and scored 383 marks. Mr Ogada knows, however, that life will still be hard.

“There is food, there is the rent for the single room I stay in, but these young men need sabuni (soap),” he said. The mother is dead.

Another parent, Ms Margaret Mulee, Agripiner’s step-mother, was equally happy.

“She (Agripiner) would have ended up just like many of the girls around here,” she said. “Pregnancy and social evil.”