After many months of prayerful consideration, we are excited to announce that MOHI is partnering with the Kenyan government to enhance the educational programs of two separate public schools in Turkana County in northwestern Kenya—Kangagetei and Napusimoru. MOHI will help facilitate child sponsorship, provide input on teacher hiring and training, identify and secure additional resources (like books and student desks), and implement more comprehensive feeding programs at these schools.
This is the first time in our 15-year history that MOHI has partnered with a government school. We are very excited to share the MOHI model of empowerment and holistic transformation—physical, social, emotional, and spiritual—with the children and parents of these marginalized villages. We also know that God will provide and lead us in the best way to partner with these schools.
Kangagetei and Napusimoru public schools each currently educate more than 300 students. MOHI’s ministry partner, CMF International, has maintained a presence in Kangagetei through its missionaries who have helped serve the school.
Both schools lack adequate resources to accommodate the current number of students and to achieve desired growth. Neither school has a comprehensive feeding program. Providing consistent, well-balanced meals to children is vital to keeping them in school and equipping them to remain focused in class. MOHI will help enhance each school's current feeding programs by providing nutritious meals. Additionally, MOHI will come alongside the schools to provide other resources, like desks and textbooks. MOHI has already donated 50 new desks and 8 teacher desks to Kangagetei as a sign of continued support.
MOHI first expanded its ministries to Turkana in January 2013 when we opened our Napuu school center in Lodwar. At opening, Napuu had 320 students. The center has now grown to more than 800 students! This rapid growth reflects the desire and need for education in Turkana County.
Life in Turkana is difficult due to the harsh, desert climate. Without education, very few opportunities exist for residents to support their families and create a healthy life. Only 40 percent of school-aged children in Turkana County attend school, often infrequently. School-aged boys in this pastoralist society are expected to help the men tend livestock (sheep, goats, and camels), while school-aged girls help at home and often marry as adolescents. Thus, without affordable and accessible education, Turkana children will follow the same path of poverty and subsistence living as their parents and grandparents.
When a team from MOHI visited Kangagetei and Napusimoru earlier this month, we witnessed the deep hunger that families and children seem to have for education. Groups of Turkana women and village elders joined us at the Kangagetei school the morning we arrived to demonstrate their support for the school. Government officials also came to welcome us and express their desire to work with MOHI to cooperatively strengthen the quality of education provided there.
In Napusimoru, the staff proudly took us on a tour of their school. In one classroom, a group of 8th-grade students were quietly studying on their own for their upcoming national exams. Each student told us exactly which high school they desire to attend and what score they need to achieve on their exams to be admitted. Our group was immensely impressed by these students’ focus and ambition. We know that many more children in the village also desire to reach secondary school (and beyond) to create a better life for themselves and their families.
We request your prayers as MOHI begins these new partnerships in Turkana. God has opened the door for us to come alongside Kangagetei and Napusimoru public schools, so we know that He will bless and multiply our efforts. Please also pray with us for the current students, staff, and potential new recruits at each school, that God will continue making a way for quality, affordable education in Turkana County.
Blessings,
Mary Kamau, Executive Director
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