Written By Ramadhan Kambi 📝
Education is key to life and getting it means a lot to every individual. In Kilifi County, many children have been missing out on education because of various challenges including poverty and other life challenges. But now there is a ray of hope after a company decided to fund brightly and needy students.
More than 50 children from poverty-stricken families in Kilifi County have received full scholarships from Centum Real Estate Company to study in National secondary schools.
Every year, the company gives out scholarships to students who have performed exemplary well in their KCPE.
So far, 300 young bright children both boys and girls from Kilifi have benefitted since the program was launched.
Kenneth Mbae the Managing Director of Centum Real estate company limited said since they started the program, they have 100 students have joined the university.
Speaking during the issuance of the bursaries to the beneficiaries at Vipingo he said the idea behind the scholarship program is to empower poor bright needy students in the locality where they are constructing a city so as to enable them to benefit from the job opportunities in future.
“Today is another joyous opportunity, one of our proudest moments, we are awarding scholarships to 50 beneficiaries of the recently released KCPE results, we sponsor bright and needy kids who would otherwise have not gone to high school,” he said.
Mbae said the beneficiaries were selected from 23 schools within their project area which have now totaled 300 children.
He said the criteria of the scholarship is one has to score 320 marks and above adding that the candidate must also be coming from a needy background.
“The reason we sponsor is that we want to transform communities where we do business and one of the biggest roots of transformation is through education that’s why we are pushing this scholarship program and we’ve really seen some benefits,” he said.
In the just-released KCSE, he said they had several As and 45 C-plus and above which will be impactful to the society in future.
Mbae said any student who scores below B is disqualified from the program that’s why they recruit children who scored 320 marks and above who can perform well.
He said in the next 10 years society will be able to have engineers, doctors, CEOs, and lawyers among many other professionals who will have come out of the scholarship.
Catherine Mturi-Wairi the Director of Centum and Vipingo Development Limited who was present during the ceremony said the program was one of the ways of giving back to the community.
She said the scholarship targets those in dire need of the scholarship to give them a chance to join secondary school.
“It’s very important for children from the Coast region to get educational support so as to transform the livelihoods and economy of the area,” she said.
Wairi who is from the region also wants to give back to the community adding that through the program she has a chance to support her people.
The Director said she was so keen in girl child education because educating one girl is empowering the whole community.
“I always like to emphasize on girls to work hard and I use myself as an example, they can be anything they dream of provided they get the encouragement,” she said.
Zedine Nyevu,16, is one of the beneficiaries who could not hide her joy upon being selected to join the scholarship program saying had it not been for that it would have been difficult for her to join a national school.
Nyevu the sixth born in a family of eight said she schooled at Gongoni primary and scored 326 marks adding that she got a place at St. Thomas girl’s secondary school.
“I am very happy for getting a scholarship, I will be supported, all the fees will be paid for, had it not been for this scholarship I would have gone to a day school,” she said.
She said the situation at home is bad because all her parents are jobless and depend only on her sister who does odd jobs and could not have afforded the fees.
Nyevu promised to work hard and has an ambition of becoming a doctor after completing her studies.
Francis Mwaro another beneficiary who is also 16 years old scored 368 marks in KCPE after schooling at Chodari primary school in Kilifi south and will be joining Malindi high school.
“It’s my joy to get this scholarship because my family is poor back home so am happy because I will join the school that I got,” he said adding that had it not been for the scholarship he would have gone to a day school like Shariani secondary.
He thanked the sponsors and urged them to continue supporting others who are from poverty-stricken families.
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