Some Thoughts about the Last Year

As many of you know, I have been home in Colorado only 2 months of the last 12. My commitment to girls from Tasaru, when they complete high school and must face the difficult transition of leaving Tasaru's care to reconcile with their families, is very strong. I've learned alot over the last three years and many of my responsibilities now come much easier. But with each girl, there are undoubtedly different challenges and hurdles. Whether it is assisting her to apply for her national I.D. (a must for applying for a job, opening a bank account, applying to college, or getting a birth certificate) or wading through the many hurdles and steps of applying for & enrolling in a post-secondary program, I know that I am gaining expertise and a certain comfort level with the way things work in Kenya. And having this expertise will help me help each subsequent girl from Tasaru more efficiently.

A perfect example of this is having just completed the long and stressful process of enrolling the first girl from Tasaru to qualify for public university in the Biology Department of the University of Nairobi. In Kenya, the 7 government-funded, public universities provide the better education and have the higher standards for admission than the hundreds of private institutions. While several girls have qualified for certificate level programs in teachers' colleges and private colleges, she is the first to qualify for a four-year degree program at public university. Since the day in early March when we received her high school exam results indicating that she qualified to apply for admission until Monday, October 18 when she was finally sitting in her first class as a full-time "fresher" student, we have been tirelessly navigating the hurdles, inefficiencies, roadblocks, and bureaucracy that is the university education system of Kenya.

Having gone through the process now for the first time, I can easily say that the next girl from Tasaru that qualifies for public university will benefit from her experience! Even now, as several girls from Tasaru begin the three-week exam period that concludes their high school education, I am hopeful that one of them will qualify to study Engineering at University of Nairobi.