18,000 miss out on Equity’s scholarships

When the Equity Group Foundation and co-sponsors awarded 2,000 bright students from poor families scholarships for higher education last Friday, a bigger burden weighed heavily on chief executive James Mwangi and President Uhuru Kenyatta, who was the chief guest.

There were another 18,000 candidates for the programme who had applied – and qualified – but the Equity the Mastercard foundations could not afford to sponsor them all under the Wings to Fly programme.

While the good news is those who qualified will be joining Form One in top schools next month on a full scholarship that caters for their school fees, uniform and stipend, the question is what happens to the 18,000 needy and academically gifted students in dire need of a sponsor?

Mr Mwangi said that of the 20,300 applications received, the selection panel singled out 8, 349 desperate cases — those they ascertained wouldn’t go to Form One unless they were given scholarships.

Still, out of those 8,349 desperate cases, some 6,000 had to be left out as the sponsors settled for the 2,000 classified as the neediest of the needy.

NEEDY BUT BRIGHT STUDENTS

On Friday, President Kenyatta appealed to MPs to follow up cases of needy but bright students to put their best efforts to see that such are not left behind.

Mr Mwangi said he was touched by what he came across as the selection process continued.

“What amazed us was the level of poverty in our country. We are living in a broken society; a dysfunctional society in the social and economic front. We could see graphic cases where a single-mother in a slum was sleeping on the same mattress with her 15-year-old son,” said Mr Mwangi.

Of the 2000 selected students, 86 per cent are orphans or partial orphans, while 89.2 per cent have been raised by single mothers.

Mr Mwangi said that most of these single mothers eke out a living from hawking and selling vegetables.

He added that the 2,000 applicants were selected in a rigorous process that involved thorough scrutiny into the lives of applicants to ascertain their desperation levels.

Among the lucky ones is Joseph Ndoro Chako from Taita Taveta,  who would have joined his grandfather’s masonry trade had it not been for this scholarship.

He lives with his ageing grandfather with two other siblings. His exemplary performance in primary school inspired his teachers to buy him a solar-powered lamp to aid his night studies.  Ndoro did not disappoint. He scored 383 marks and was among the top pupils at Sasenyi Primary School.