The Republic of Kenya is a country located on the east coast of Africa. Kenya has a population of 51.4 million. The population will continue to grow rapidly at a rate of 2.3%. Kenya made some impressive growth in per capita income since 2003, rising by more than $1,200 USD to $1,810 USD, despite the poverty estimates currently ranging between 34% and 42%. The development of Kenya’s economic growth is excellent, however, there is still room for improvement, particularly in Kenya’s education and employment of women. Kenya struggles massively with closing the gap in education rates between girls and boys as well as overall dropout rates of youth. This is due to families not having enough income to afford school supplies or worse, requiring additional income from the youth by going to work or giving care at home instead of attending school. Almost all the reasons for not attending school are lack of economic resources and awareness.
LIFE aims to not only increase the number of students able to attend school but also to give students the best chance at success by providing them with essential school supplies. Our Back to School Projects has had numerous success stories globally, most recently in Malindi Orphan Centre in Malindi and Muguga Primary School in Kiamba, Kenya. The distribution was of 1 years’ worth of school supplies to 410 students between the ages of 10-17. Items that were given to the students included backpacks, books, pens, pencils, erasers, sharpeners, mathematical sets, color pencils, hand sanitizer, and face masks. The benefits of the successful distribution are numerous, easing the financial burden of children attending school, giving children autonomy, confidence, and control over their learning environments, equalization of students’ abilities and access to school materials, and keeping the learning environment healthy and covid free with protective masks and hand sanitizer.
The children were profoundly impacted by the new school supplies. From the Malindi Orphans Centre Mariam Abdi, 12 years old says ‘’I want to thank the whole Team of LIFE For Relief and Development for my new school bag, I am now able to go to school happily knowing I have all the supplies needed, since sometimes I lack stationeries which keeps me behind in my studies and homework, this will help me all year long, and keep me focused, Thank you once again.’’ From Muguga Primary School- Christopher Njoroge, 10 Years old excitedly exclaims ‘’ I feel very blessed today because of my new bag from LIFE, I always come to school without stationeries since my parents can’t buy them for me, I must keep borrowing every day, but now I am very happy to have my own stationeries. I feel very happy and blessed. Thank You LIFE."
