They are shy, here in the head teacher’s office, speaking softly and hesitantly in English—which is, after all, their third language. But they’ve come. They’re sharing their stories with me.
“I like to be at school,” says the first girl, age thirteen, “because at home, when I am not at school, I am cooking and caring for animals and I do not have time to read.”
“And early marriage is there,” adds her classmate, who is twelve years old and who knows that, were she not in school, she would likely be a wife and mother by now. She straightens her spine and narrows her eyes. “I want an education. It is my future.”
Between classes, I watch them giggle and chase soccer balls like the children they are. In class, they listen intently, gripping their pencils and striving to understand every word, every question, every mathematical equation, because they grasp the value of education, and they know that schooling is not guaranteed. Their mothers did not go to school; just ten years ago, here in Loltulelei, Samburu, only two girls graduated from the eighth grade.
(Last year, thirty girls did. This primary school is transforming the community.)
These girls intend to go to high school—and beyond. When asked, they tell me, “I will be a doctor… I will be a teacher… I will be a nurse.”
Given the financial help they need, they will absolutely do these things. That same day, I watch Stella—herself a high school graduate, thanks to an FUM Girl Child Education scholarship—stand in front of a class of sixty small students and pass on to them what she has gained. “A, B, C, D . . . five, ten, fifteen, twenty . . . this is my head, these are my shoulders . . .” Stella is raising a baby, too, whom she will send to school.
To invest in these girls is to lift up generations. And the need is urgent; our Girl Child Education Fund is running low.
$475 can pay a girl’s school fees for a year. Will you help?
-Emily Provance (2018 Living Letters volunteer in Samburu)
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