Proposed Student: Elina Kisio

Home Place: Il Ngwesi, Kenya

Proposed school Program: Public Secondary School in Kenya

Elina is among the girls at Lokusero Primary School who will not be able to move onto secondary school without outside help. The number of girls at Lokusero that are even in a position to move onto secondary school is very few.

Elina is 15 years old, and in Grade 7 at Lokusero Primary School. She has recently become a boarder (after this was made available by the Enkerai Education Trust) to avoid the 12km roundtrip daily walk to school. Her favourite subject is science. Her parents are small scale farmers in the rainy season when farming is possible. Her family depends on relief food from the government. She has two sisters and four brothers. She lives with her mom. Her dad lives in 1.5 hours away in Nanyuki and she barely ever sees him. She likes preaching, praying, and singing and wants to be a nurse.

There is no government day secondary school close to Elina’s home so her most affordable option for secondary school is a government boarding school. The government subsidizes 10,500 KSH of the 30 000KSH yearly cost of boarding school. So this leaves Elina 19 500 KSH ($265 USD) short of school fees. Her family is able to contribute some but nowhere near enough.