EASF unveiled its new brochure, a gift from QSL Printing (Eugene, OR) at a fundraiser in Eugene this week. Kenyan Hepsiba Chepgneno, an EASF beneficiary, is featured on the cover. Hepsiba is a member of the Education and Social Empowerment Program's Class of 2013 which is currently applying to U.S. universities and colleges. EASF supported the Kenyan NGO this year with airfare for American tutors and registration fees for SAT Subject Tests.

EASF advisory board member Cornellius Metto (EaSEP '10), a junior at Princeton, joined the gathering by Skype following a presentation by EASF board member Erik Heinonen.

Many thanks to Cary Hancock and Jim Hill for opening their home to host the EASF event.

Donations to the East African Scholars Fund helped support the Education and Social Empowerment Program in Kenya this year, paying for SAT Subject Test registrations and airfare for two American tutors. EASF donors also contributed used study guides and library books.

While SAT and TOEFL test preparation continues to be the focus of EaSEP, critical thinking is increasingly an important piece of the larger picture as students learn to identify problems in Kenya and possible solutions as they lay out their educational goals.

The Class of 2013-14 used podcasts of TED Talks (Technology, Entertainment, Design) to prepare for the TOEFL and engaged in local needs assessments through visits with roadside vendors, patients two-to-a bed in a maternity hospital and workers at a tea estate. Students held round table discussions of ways to meet described needs and outlined the common roadblocks which stymie progress in their country.

Students also organized debates on current events and engaged in spirited discussions, often based on excerpts from the Blair Reader, an anthology of essays on cultural topics by prominent authors  such as Barbara DeFoe Whitehead ( “The Girls of Gen X” ).  The class also took advantage of the EaSEP library, reading such books as “Half the Sky” (Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn), “The Last Hunger Season” (Roger Thurow) “Cutting for Stone” (Abraham Verghese ) and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from the Birmingham Jail”.