Educate a Girl and You Educate a Village: Part 2
“I want to be a pilot.”
“I want to be a nurse.”
“I want to be a teacher and come back and teach the children in my community.”
The girls from WE Charity’s Kisaruni High School enthusiastically share their dreams with me as I sit at a desk in one of their classrooms in rural Kenya. When I ask Mercy, a student my husband and I sponsored through high school, what she wants to do when she graduates, she proudly tells me she will be a surgeon. There is no doubt in her statement or her eyes.
Kisaruni graduates are changing their futures and consequently their communities. They are ambitious, eager learners committed to bringing their dreams into reality. They love school!
“Where will the next Wangarai Maathai come from?” shouts David Baum, my trip co-leader to the assembly of Kisaruni girls. Without hesitation their arms go up and they yell “KISARUNI!!” in unison. Wangari Maathai—renowned Kenyan social, environmental, and political activist and the first African woman to win the Nobel Prize—is their hero and role model. If you are looking for signs of hope and promise, talk to girls who are accessing education for the first time.
Kisaruni girls are transformed by their high school experience. By the end of their first year they are confident, speaking English in public to international visitors, sharing stories about their education and their dreams. Many are the first person in their family to go to school.
When I interview the girls, they each express a desire to give back to their communities. Generosity is part of their vision. From agriculture to healthcare these girls are shaping their future and the future of their families.
Once a girl is educated, she is eager for her sister to get educated. An educated girl wants an educated husband. Education is contagious—it empowers youth to find a way to put legs under their dreams. They do not have dreams born of desperation. Because school opens the world to them, they have dreams of positive change, hope, and purpose.
Girls are not the only ones getting an opportunity to change their lives in rural Kenya. In Northern Kenya, employing women as keepers at Reteti Elephant Orphanage empowers women who may not have formal education to earn economic freedom through paid work. The women are trained at Reteti in the care, rehabilitation, and reintegration into the wild of rescued orphan elephant and rhino calves. The attention, love, and care that is essential in the rehabilitation of a traumatized wild animal is a skill that comes naturally to the women—they have been caring for their families since the beginning of time.
The women keepers are influencers. Their daughters, sisters, and friends notice that employment brings security, income, and a sense of self-worth that is priceless. By their example, the Samburu women of Reteti are part of an expanding movement enabling women and girls to bring their natural skills of compassion and leadership to current issues affecting their gender like female genital mutilation, education, and family planning.
To date we’ve raised $1500 for Reteti and the women who work there. Your donations are making a difference in a woman’s life, a girl’s life and an elephant’s life—Asante Sana!
One of my elephant photos covers both sides of this 22x22” throw pillow, with a linen-feel polyester fabric case that is machine-washable.