Rhino Scholarships: Education is Conservation

As we draw a close on 2022, we want to thank you for your incredible support which has enabled the Ol Pejeta team to continue providing educational opportunities to vulnerable children in northern Kenya. Together we have achieved so much! This year alone, we have supported 99 girls and 51 (150 students in total) through our Scholarship program.

As we share this update, 17 students in grade 12 sat their national examinations on the 23rd December. This was made possible thanks to your ongoing support and we look forward to sharing their results in the new year.

For students within our scholarship program, we host a one-week mentorship workshop at Daraja Academy - one of our partner schools. The topics that our workshop leaders cover personal management, sex education, confidence, self-esteem, acceptance, self-worth, and leadership among others. This workshop was originally scheduled for December, but we took the decision to postpone it due to the national examination. We hope this will take place in the new year and look forward to keeping you updated. These workshops are critical for self-development, enabling students to confront underlying issues and slowly break academic barriers. The mentorship programme is especially important for women, who often have very few female role-models.

Around this time each year we seek to visit each school to check-in with students, teachers and offer support. Unfortunately due to the Kenyan Ministry of Education's schedule, we have not been able to visit the schools

By improving opportunities for students, we are ensuring that young people become socially responsible and productive members of society. Education plays a key role with improving the resilience of communities, who are better able to respond to the challenges of climate change, economic instability and more.

Your support through another challenging year for all, has enabled us to continue providing opportunities to learners that will uplift themselves and their families out of extreme poverty.

 A warm Asante Sana from all of us at Ol Pejeta Conservancy.

Godfrey - who lives with his parents and two siblings in Endana Village - has a place at Endana Secondary School because of your generous support!

Education is a human right – a right which many children living in the communities surrounding Ol Pejeta are denied. Parents living in poverty often struggle to pay school fees and as a result, their children miss out on secondary education.

Godfrey’s family own a small piece of land where they grow onions, cabbage, and beans. However, this year their crops failed due to the prolonged dry spell, and now drought.

His father said “I rely heavily on farming to feed my family and keep the children in school, however for the past two years we have received minimal rainfall, and this year things took a turn for the worse because the river which is our only water source has since dried up. Our crops have dried up and the small percentage that survived has all been destroyed by human-wildlife conflict”.

The drought has placed enormous pressure on Godfrey’s parents, who are working tirelessly to provide for their children.

Fortunately, Godfrey was awarded a Rhino Scholarship and is currently studying at Endana Secondary School. Without this, Godfrey would not be able to attend school. Godfrey’s scholarship has helped the entire family by relieving pressure on his parents, who can now focus on providing for their two younger children.

Godfrey loves attending school and is excited to be moving to the next academic year. He is always fixing broken gadgets or anything that is not working and plans to study mechanical engineering once he finishes school.

Godfrey said, “a very big thank you to my donors for being part of my education and for a bright-looking future”.

Thank you so much for your generous support, it means the world to our rhino scholarship students, their families and communities.