Kenya Self-Help Project / Nyashep Education Trust

More than half of all children in Kendu Bay fail to complete a primary education due to extreme poverty and HIV/AIDS-related parental deaths. The dropout rate is highest among girls; more than 70% do not finish grade eight.

In 1998, a core of education leaders in the United States joined hands with Kenya partners, Nyashep Education Trust, to improve educational opportunity and family security for children in Kendu Bay, Kenya. The community action group is dedicated to poverty eradication and development through education, while promoting self-sufficiency and community participation.

Impoverished youth benefit from the project’s high school Scholarship Program that supports and mentors academically gifted students who are unable to continue in school without help toward tuition fees and basic supplies.

Girls in grades 4-8 benefit from a project-sponsored Girls Health and Social Empowerment program delivered through a network of Girls Clubs at local primary schools.  The project also supplies girls with Dignity Kits locally produced by the Voice of the Youth ladies, a small community project dedicated to helping young girls stay in school as they reach puberty.