​Collins Metto (Princeton ’20), spent a week in Oregon for EASF-related events in late spring, then returned to Kenya to embark on a summer outreach program for rural high school students. The previous summer he and EaSEP ’16 classmate Yony Kibiwott, on their own, visited some 16,000 urban students to expose them to the possibilities and opportunities of higher education, and how to access them.

This year Collins enlisted six colleagues from other US universities, secured a grant from the Princeton Class of 1978, and set off to visit 22 Kenyan schools and 14,000 some students.

“While the student populations varied from school to school (in some schools we talked to a grade, while in others we talked to the entire student body), students en masse had a distinct energy,” writes Collins.

“A collective gasp at the flexible and inviting structure of a liberal arts education, or a 750-strong excited cheer at the American dining hall buffet layout made each visit an adventure into the evolving interests and fondest likes of a typical Kenyan high school student.

“After the school-wide talks, we often held question and answer sessions with groups of 10-20 students and usually had one-on-ones. In these smaller talks, I found that students acquired a different persona. The shy, hesitant student at the back of the hall emerged as a bold, outspoken student who could share an entire life story and ask difficult university seminar-level questions; I could view these students not only as young mentees, but as peers, who with committed guidance, will ultimately be high achievers.”

With Kenyan schools shutting down for elections, Collins headed to Kigali, Rwanda to observe how the Yale Young African Scholars Program runs it mentorship workshops and to design a mentorship network run by graduates of pre-university program (such as EaSEP) for high school students. A brief stop in Ethiopia put him in touch with a few more students before heading home to classes at Princeton.

“Over two years, 40 high schools, 30,000 students, 12+ towns, two capital cities, and dozens of online mentorship sessions, I have realized that across different educational systems, across different national languages, and across different backgrounds, the quest for academic achievement remains vital,” he concludes.

The East African Scholars Fund is the primary sponsor of Kenya's Education and Social Empowerment Program. Here's a look at EaSEP's 2017 graduates:

Johnstone Kipyator wasted little time putting his Stanford degree in Engineering to work. The EaSEP alum is currently embarking on a Master’s degree in Energy Resources Engineering and will be on the Stanford campus this summer to lay out the technical aspects of a one-megawatt solar power plant he is designing for use in Kenya. Later in the summer he will return home to find the optimal location for the plant.
 
St. Lawrence University grad Winsome Toroitich expects to use her degree in Statistics and Economics to join a Financial Advisory company in East Africa. For the immediate future she is actively seeking employment in the US, planning to work for three years then pursue an MBA. She also has been accepted to graduate programs in Finance and Economics.
 
Cynthia Kipkorir graduated from Mount Holyoke with a B.A. in Economics and International Relations and is seeking employment in those fields.
 
Dennis Korir earned a B.S. in Mathematics with minors in Computer Science and Anthropology at Saint Lawrence University. He is currently looking for jobs in the IT/software industry and says he will be staying in San Diego, California until he finds a job.
 
After graduating with honors in Electrical Engineering at Maryland Eastern Shore, Derrick Cheruiyot is looking for employment as he awaits news about his graduate school applications.
 
Kevin Baru earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in bioengineering at Penn and has secured a position in his field in the San Francisco, California area. He interned in Ghana and China.
 
Martha Aywa, one of the first two MasterCard Foundation Scholars at Wellesley College, graduated this spring with a B.S. in Biochemistry. With a long-term goal of working in healthcare, Martha is seeking employment for a few years before attending graduate school. She interned at the Kenya Medical Research Institute and the Indangalasia Community HIV/AIDS Resource Center near her home in western Kenya.

Mercy Kiprotich graduated fall semester with a degree in Hotel Administration from Cornell’s SC Johnson College of Business. She hopes to be in graduate school next fall and intern in the meantime in either Restaurant or Hotel Operations. Long-term, she wants to work in the hospitality industry in a managerial role before starting her own hospitality consulting company in Kenya.

 
 
 
 
 
 

Newly minted diplomas in hand, they’re off to the next step: conducting breast cancer research in Gabon, working with start-ups in Nairobi and looking for work in finance, business, engineering and chemistry.

Congratulations to these graduates from the EASF-supported Education and Social Empowerment Program in Kenya:

Gloria Kurere, Cornell 
Wesley Kirui, St. Lawrence
Victoria Kiplagat, Brown
Sam Bor, Pomona
Edwin Cheruiyot, Princeton         
Titus Maritim, Cornell (sub-matriculating, M.S. in 2017)
Kevin Baru, Penn (sub-matriculating, M.S. in 2017)

East African Scholars Fund President Janet Heinonen recently joined representatives from 22 other African programs to discuss their efforts to help high-achieving, low-income (HALI) students access a global education. She shared the story of Kenya's Education and Social Empowerment Program, sponsored in large part by EASF.

Read more about the HALI Indaba in Zimbabwe:

http://news.yale.edu/2016/04/18/conference-explored-how-support-high-achieving-and-low-income-african-students

The East African Scholar’s Fund mission is to develop a new generation of East African leaders who will make a positive impact at home. How does one cultivate such young people? Besides the SAT prep work needed for admission to top U.S. universities, EASF encourages students to explore and study their own country with new eyes.

A recent trip to Kenya’s Kokwa Island in Lake Baringo by EASF-supported students emphasized the fact-gathering/critical thinking skills and empathy those students will carry with them to American schools, and one day, back home.

The Education and Social Empowerment Program’s current class partnered with the Network for Ecofarming in Africa, a community-based NGO promoting ecologically sustainable land management and community access to education, health, food security and social dignity.

EASF board member and international development specialist Erik Heinonen instructed the students in field research basics. The students compiled their findings and recommendations in a report to NECOFA which works closely with Baringo County to tackle island issues. The students also came away with great respect for the breadth of programs and initiatives sustained by NECOFA and the efforts of its director, Samuel Muhunyu.

Accompanied by local interpreters, five pairs of EaSEP students spent nine hours circumnavigating the island  to interview residents about health, transportation, commerce, education and political influences. They learned about life sustained by the fish of Lake Baringo. Moses Leching’ei, a man in his 70s, catches and smokes fish, selling it on the mainland for flour to support three young children in his care. He said that with his small canoe, a few goats and the fish, “his life is complete.”
 
Farther along, students spoke with an elderly woman fishing a few feet from shore. She knows that without her catch, there is no other food that she will find. Her sons and daughters have moved to the mainland to look for jobs and she is alone. She acknowledges the crocodiles who challenge her for fish: “They are dangerous, yes, and they are here. They can attack me at any time but there is no other way for me to get food. It is just by the grace of God that I am safe.” 
 
The challenges of life in the searing heat of Kokwa Island are daunting for its 1800 inhabitants: not enough income to feed and educate children, or purchase mosquito netting to prevent malaria; no roads on the island, tribal clashes threatening family safety and livestock; an arid climate unfavorable to farming and livestock, worry that fishing is not sustainable, no extensive trading market on the island, and reduced political representation under Kenya’s new constitution.
 
Without training, young people lack the skills to work in the local tourism industry. Without fully operational hospitals or clinics, islanders must travel to the mainland for urgent medical care and rely on a sole dispensary nurse (supported by NECOFA) for everything else. Yet island schools offer hope, to both girls and boys.
 
The EaSEP teams regrouped to spend two full days visiting Kokwa primary and secondary schools, meeting first at each school with a large class of students, then breaking into small groups for more personal discussions— to share the “secrets” of academic success, but mostly to encourage the younger students “that their dreams are valid,” wrote EaSEP’s Yoni Kibiwot. He and his classmates also met at length with teachers at each school, sharing the insights obtained from the younger students, discussing the teachers’ challenges and offering suggestions from their own school experiences.
 
Only two students from Kokwa Island have ever gone on to university and the EaSEP group encouraged others to follow. "We wanted to tell the students that it is not a matter of whether they can or can’t, but a matter of whether they will or won’t. To tell them to not allow idleness to deceive them with the pleasure it gives them today for it denies them the joy of tomorrow,” Yoni recalled.

Samuel Muhunyu reported that teachers expressed gratitude for their students in remote schools “to interact and learn from the best students.” The head teachers at Kiserian Secondary School said that the EaSEP visit “could be the turning point for the students and schools.”
 

We applaud the “Go back, Give back” vision of the MasterCard Foundation Scholars Program and are proud to have supported seven Kenyan students who’ve earned prestigious MasterCard scholarships at Cal-Berkeley (Linus Kipkech), Michigan State (Beatrice Kemboi, Abigael Metto, Hepsiba Chepngeno, Joyline Chepkorir), Wellesley (Martha Aywa) and Duke (Elsie Odero).
 
We are also pleased to see that many EASF-supported students are giving back, some before they’ve even left Kenya, some during their course of study, and others after graduation:
 
--Members of the 2014 Education and Social Empowerment Program in Nandi Hills, Kenya organized a community service and needs assessment trip to Makindu Children’s Center in a hot, rural region of eastern Kenya last February. The day center serves more that 1,200 destitute AIDS orphans and other vulnerable children who live in the area with foster families. Vivian Kiniga and Shadrack Lilan were lead coordinators.
 
The current EaSEP class is planning a five-day service and needs assessment trip to the Kokwa community on and near Kokwa Island in Lake Baringo in February. The students will work with the Kenyan NGO Network for Ecofarming in Africa with a primary focus on education. Theo Korir is doing the legwork to coordinate the trip with NECOFA. EASF board member Erik Heinonen met with the class in Nairobi recently to instruct the students in field research strategies.
 
--Harvard sophomore Caroline Kimetto spent her freshman winter break last year doing research on HIV/AIDS and abortion in Kenya. This year she plans to set up a pilot program in her hometown of Kericho to encourage grade 8 leavers to transition to high school. She is focusing on the three-month window between primary school and high school, when youths either have “nothing to do” or begin a cycle of work on farms or tea estates and never return to school.
 
--Recent Princeton grad (and EASF Advisory Board member) Cornellius Metto spent the summer tutoring at EaSEP camp before heading to Seattle for a job with Microsoft. He was joined by EaSEP alum and current Yale sophomore Michelle Kemei. Other alums who spent significant time helping with the program included Gideon Too (Wesleyan grad now working in Nairobi for Ernst & Young), David Chege (Princeton freshman), Vivian Kiniga (Cornell freshman), Vincent Bett (Tufts freshman), Shadrack Lilan (Penn freshman) and Daniel Lang’at Cheruiyot (June Northwestern grad).
 
--Hepsiba Chepngeno represented Michigan State at a Young Africa Works Summit in Cape Town, South Africa this fall. The MasterCard Foundation Scholars Program sponsored the summit which helped prepare youth for employment and entrepreneurship opportunities in agriculture. Topics included agriculture in Africa and its growth prospects, finance models and the role of technology. Hepsiba is a sophomore majoring in Agribusiness at MSU.
 
--Gloria Kurere (EASF Advisory Board member and Cornell senior) spent her summer investigating public health issues in Namibia through Cornell’s Institute for African Development. She worked as a health research intern in Windhoek at the Polytechnic of Namibia’s Department of Communications, compiling a report of Namibia’s progress towards the Millennium Development Goals.
 
She also traveled in rural areas to research the outbreak of the highly contagious Foot and Mouth Disease in cattle and steps being taken to prevent further spread. She completed her internship shadowing technicians in various departments at Namibia’s Institute of Pathology and spent much of her time in the HIV viral load testing unit.
 
--Edwin Magema, a spring Harvard grad, worked with a Pforzheimer Foundation public service fellowship program this past summer. Edwin’s initiative provided mentoring and psychological support for Samburu girls of north central Kenya who’ve faced the prospect of Feminine Genital Mutilation and early marriage. He matched the at-risk girls with families of girls attending Alliance High School, one of Kenya’s most respected schools, and helped at a mentoring conference sponsored by the Samburu Girls Foundation which received a shout-out by President Obama on his recent trip to Kenya.
 

An East African Scholars Fund Benefit Night will be held Wednesday, June 24 at Plank Town Brewing Co. in Springfield, Oregon (346 Main St.) from 5 to 9 p.m.

EASF beneficiary Linus Kipkoech, a Cal-Berkeley engineering student, will be at the event, along with members of the EASF board. Drop in between 5 and 9 for dinner and/or beverages and learn more about the scholars we support.

Plank Town will donate a portion of the evening's sales to EASF.