Every year, the Ol Pejeta Conservancy picks several needy students from the surrounding community for the PA-MOJA bursary scheme. Some get part scholarships and the more needy are awarded full scholarships wherein PA-MOJA sponsors them for four years of high school. In this post, we meet one of the beneficiaries and hear her talk about her, hopes, fears and dreams.
Susan Lekorele
Susan is a form one student at St Francis Girls in Nanyuki. She was born in her mother’s house in Rumuruti 16 years ago. She hasn’t seen much of the world outside her native home village but that hasn’t limited her ambitions. She comes from a big family, with 13 brothers and 8 sisters. Her father, who is the breadwinner for his 21 children and 3 wives is a pastoralist herder and keeps, sheep, cows and camels. Of all the girls in her family, only two are in school including Lekorele. She says that when she learnt that Ol Pejeta was going to offer her a scholarship to high school, she was overwhelmed with joy and relief.
She explains that taking a girl to high school means that their fathers have to sell a few of their cows every now and then to pay school fees. For many fathers, it makes more sense to marry her off and get about seven cows and not have to worry about the burden of educating her. Susan, hopes to be a teacher after school. She feels that having an educated girl teaching girls in her community will inspire them to rise above the mediocrity forced upon their lives by outdated cultural bias.
During her free time, Susan plays soccer for her school team as a defensive midfielder. (Position 6). In her last exam, she was position 2 in her class and hopes to improve that and better her chances of getting into university and pursue her teaching dream.
Keep up the good work,Susan!
Education is the key to success.
Susan keep going be strong.
I agree with you Susan that if you become a teacher, you will inspire more girls especially from your community to get an education.
Go girl! We are proud to help pay for things that here in Canada we get for free. It is a good reminder of how lucky we are and how hard you have to work for the same education. We will be thinking of you in the next semester. Happy New Year!
This is so Amazing!! PA-MOJA is actually doing great things!! There is nothing so valuable like getting one access to Education especially girls who are from nomadic families,this is adorable!!