Scholarships

Greetings Family and Friends,

Some of this post is similar to the farming project post, in case some one only reads one of them, so please bear with me.  Here is a more detailed look at the upcoming scholarship project as an extension of the farm project.

A large and rampant problem, or rather need, we have seen here in Kenya over the last year has to do with the high cost of children's school fees in comparison to families' monthly income.  Most schools here in Kenya cost about an average of 500-600 USD per year.  This may not sound like much, but when the average monthly income of many families ranges between $30-150 per month it begins to be difficult.  Coming up with funding is especially challenging for many of the families coming from a polygamous culture with multiple wives and about 10-20 children per family.  It is also challenging for widowed women and orphans.  When a child is short on school fees many, if not all the time, they are sent home to look for the lacking fees until they can come up with something to bring back to the school.  This causes students who are already struggling to become even further behind academically, and their moral and motivation is lowered.  It is hard to be motivated to succeed in school when you do not know whether you will ever be allowed to attend or have the chance to finish due to school fees.

Our goal is to provide income for families in need with part of that income being specifically earmarked for school fees for these families children with a farm project.  We also hope to provide some scholarships to help subsidize school fees for about 5-10 children a year, depending on profits from our bean farm (see earlier post).

Most schools we work with are around the 600 USD range per year.  Our hope was to provide scholarships for about 4-5 girls to start with to pay about two-thirds of these fees.  In this way it would bring the cost down to a manageable amount for families with many children, widows, and orphans.  At the same time it would still give them something to work toward for their children's and their own education.   Students pay by term here so they would be left with a flat amount of $70 every four months to pay.  We will also be assisting with jobs for families on the bean farm, or some "work study" positions for orphans during the breaks and waiting periods.  This not only will assist with those fees but also help keep students busy when they would be otherwise idle.  This would provide an opportunity for them to give back to their local community too.

We have started the interview process by getting students to fill out a questionnaire, acquire a recommendation letter from teachers/principle, writing a letter about themselves, and sitting for an interview.  The top candidates will be visited at their homes by a committee of ourselves and some local Kenyans to discuss the most effective and sustainable way to be connected and helping with their families.  This will come in the form of either scholarship only, a small home business, or perhaps working on the bean farm.  We anticipate needing initial funds to pay for this first term as the bean project gets started this week and has yet to have time to generate profit yet.  But our hope is that after this initial term, the bean farm will sustain the scholarships initially granted as well as open opportunities for more scholarships in the days ahead.  If you would like to be part of this shoot me an email and I can go into further detail.

We welcome any ideas and support any of you may have in regards to the project as we are both new to this, and without any business degrees or training, we are in new territory.  However, we have seen a very real need that we believe we may be able to help with and God has given us a vision of how we can help support the local community.  We pray that this will be a venue to make His glory known even from the sowing of some simple seeds.  Feel free to contact us if you have any questions, comments or ideas!  Also be in prayer for us as we start to break ground this week! To God be the glory!

Chasevarndt@gmail.com