CoKF Selects 8 Young Kiberans for the 2010 Scholarship

In order to sponsor outstanding and gifted young students in our High School Scholarship program, Children of Kibera staff members must prepare and endure a grueling selection process. In late December and early January, dozens of fourteen and fifteen-year-old students flocked to the Falkland Cyber Café to inquire about the CoKF scholarship opportunity. Some heard Project Coordinator, Japheth Ochieng’s advertisement on the radio last month. Dozens heard Ken Okoth speak about CoKF at their primary schools last year. Some merely followed CoKF signs posted around the slums to the cyber. A few learned via word of mouth from a mother’s cousin’s friend’s father, or something like that. There is no doubt that Kibera is bursting with bright and talented students. There is no doubt that hundreds or maybe thousands of families in Kibera will not afford to send their children to secondary school next year. For many, CoKF represents a rare but life-changing opportunity. For most, all hopes are resting on this scholarship… on this chance to get out of the slums.

With that, the task of selecting eight out of fifty potential scholars was indeed grueling. The first step in this month-long process was to prepare a workshop for the applicants. CoKF interns, Joscelyn and Jackie, prepared two, consecutive afternoon workshops, which took place on January 8^th ad 9^th. The workshop facilitators, Joscelyn and Japheth, not only explained the history, requirements, and expectations of the scholars program, but also organized games and activities. These activities gave the students an opportunity to highlight their personalities and to show the facilitators how they interact in groups, with adults, and under a significant amount of pressure (this is a competition, after all). Students expressed their future hopes and dreams and spent some time getting to know each other as well. Following the workshops, each student completed an application and each was personally interviewed and photographed.

The following week, CoKF staff spent hours sifting through the applications and interviews, selecting the students who made lasting impressions at the workshops and who performed exceptionally well in school and on their K.C.P.E. exam. Although the number of potentials was narrowed down to fifteen, the number of applicants kept increasing. That week, dozens more students showed up at the cyber café to apply for the scholarship, and since CoKF gives all applicants a fair chance, the number of potentials increased from fifteen to thirty. At this point, the CoKF team will complete a few rounds of home visits and personal interviews over the next few weeks until the final eight scholars are chosen.

The most challenging portion of the application process is visiting the homes of the applicants. Sitting in one family room after another, CoKF Project Coordinator, Japheth Ochieng, and interns, Joscelyn and Jackie, interviewed the families of the applicants. It was not leaping over open sewers of feces and urine or navigating alleyways of mud and trash that proved to be a challenge, but rather listening to each student’s story while knowing that not all of them will receive a chance to go to boarding school, or to any school at all. Each family is undeniably in great financial need of a scholarship to secondary school and aware that the opportunities resulting from their child's education would be life changing and monumental.

The make-up of these families is mostly universal. Most students are one of at least four children. A majority lives with at least four others in a one-room shanty. Almost all students were either sponsored to go to primary school or just barely scraped together the fees for each term. Nearly all of these applicants eat only once a day. The bulk come from single parent families, most commonly missing a father and thus depending on a single, meager salary stretched far to cover food alone. Most can only foresee two options if they do not receive the scholarship: to remain at home or to repeat Standard 8.

One mother shared the struggles she endured over the past decade. After her husband died suddenly, their community stripped them of all their belongings and they had nothing but a fortunate connection to a sympathetic landlord. The family has managed to get by day to day, some nights sleeping on an empty stomach, but always communicating their problems, feelings, and thoughts about life. This mother regularly reveals her problems to her children and their teachers and shares with her children that they need to "work hard for their own future and not end up suffering like me."

Many families boasted that despite their financial troubles, long commutes, and lack of electricity for studies, their children are in the top five of their class. For some, receiving this scholarship would promote them to a level of education that no other family member has ever achieved. For others who disclosed their HIV status, it would mean peace of mind for their child’s future and less to worry about on top of their heath. To all the applicants, receiving the scholarship would mean the world. Clearly, the children of Kibera have incredible potential, and CoKF wishes nothing more than to some day have the capacity to send each and every student through quality secondary education and see them pursue university to improve the situations of their families, community, and nation.