Father daughter story; learning as a family

Father-daughter story: Learning as a family Since there is such high demand for spots at Kakenya Center for Excellence (KCE), we usually do not take more than one girl from the same family. This is because we hope a student will be able to go home and share some of her knowledge with her siblings, and try to reach as many students as possible.

However, for the case of Grace and Dorcus, we knew we could not separate them as they are twins.

It is also common for fathers and daughters from the maasai community not to have close relationships, but we work to actively involve fathers in their daughters' education, so that they can see the benefits of educating girls first hand. One such father is Joshua, father to Grace and Dorcus. Read this family’s story below: My name is Joshua and I am age 42. I am a pastor at a local church in my community and I am also a small scale maize and sugarcane farmer. My wife Emily and I have five children, a 15 year old boy and two sets of twins!

My first set of twins, Grace and Dorcus are 11 years old and in grade five at KCE. They were enrolled in 2016 and so far their two years at the school has already yield tremendous result in teams of subject performance, especially in Science and English.

But first, allow me to take you slightly back to before Grace and Dorcus joined KCE; the girls used to attend a local day-school that lacked adequate teaching and learning resources. The day-school had limited teachers and classrooms which were overcrowded.

Classroom experience was hard as they used to share very few text books that were available and most of them were not up-to-date. Lack of access to electricity at our home also disadvantaged their studies as it was a challenge for them to do homework in the evenings when they returned from school. Such challenges interfered with their school performance. When they got the opportunity to do enrollment interview at KCE, Grace emerged first while Dorcus was fifth out of the 40 students who passed the interview.

This made me happy and proud of their achievement!

My daughters now have access to good classroom, trained teachers and adequate text books at KCE. They are also provided with uniform, shoes, writing materials and other boarding school amenities needed to support their studies. Attending school has also enabled Grace and Dorcus not to be prone to harmful cultural practices like Female

Genital Mutilation (FGM) and early marriages which is still practiced in secrecy in my community. I value their education because l know it will give them a foundation for a better future. Due to my poor family background, I was only able to get an education up to form 4 level (high school diploma).

However, I want Grace and Dorcus to study up to the university and even have PHD like Dr. Kakenya. I always let them know that they can achieve their dreams through hard work and determination.

Quotes from Dorcus and Grace: “My name is Dorcus and I am in grade 5 at KCE. My best subject is science which I scored 80% in my end of term exams. I love going to school because it will enable me to become a government secretary when I grow up. I urge fellow girls to study hard so that in the future they will be able to have good jobs and provide for themselves and their family.”

“My name is Grace and I also go to school at KCE. I am a 5 grader and just like my twin sister Dorcus, science is my best subject. I scored 84% in my end of term exams. My dream is to become the president of Kenya. My advice to young girls is that they should not get married before completing their education.”

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