Sending a student to school in Kenya

Justin Seward
Times Reporter

 

Strathmore High School’s (SHS) Me to We Club held a vow of silence on Nov. 13 in an effort to raise awareness on child poverty and labour. The club is also raising money to help send Vivian, a Kenyan student, to high school for four years.
“We’ve done three volunteer trips to Kenya. So we’ve seen the school in its building phase, we’ve visited after its first class started attending and we were there last May as well,” said Christine Magill, Me to We organizer.
“We’re basically sponsoring a girl from one of the communities (Osenetoi) that we’ve been fundraising for since 2009.”
The Kisaruni All Girls Secondary School was built in Kenya to provide an opportunity for girls in the royal village of Osentoi the chance to go to high school.
“The idea is to fundraise a total of $10,000 and that’ll cover high school which is grades 9 through 12 and it’ll cover her education, room and board, everything she needs for four years of school,” said Magill.
Me to We often works with the Free the Children organization, a group that has been working closely with the Kenya community of Kisaruni to allow girls to apply for school.
“Vivian would have to work incredibly hard to do really well in her previous exams in order to receive a scholarship to Kisaruni. So we actually asked if there was a way for us to fundraise for Kisaruni and they matched us with her,” said Magill.
Me to We will receive updates about Vivian’s progress through a profile that is provided to them.
This year other clubs within SHS have gotten on board to help with the fundraising efforts. One of those clubs is the cosmopolitan class, which will host a fundraising event on Nov. 20 to assist with putting Vivian through school.
“We find some cause the kids are passionate about and we donate the proceeds to that,” said Cosmopolitan teacher Jeanette Greep.
“This year we decided to put it towards the Me to We student Vivian. So our girls volunteer their time from 9 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. All the money we raise will go towards Me to We.”