Grace's Journey from the Rift Valley to University

When Grace Wanjiru was fourteen, her father left the family. Her mother, a smallholder farmer in Nakuru County, tried to stretch every shilling across rent, food, and school fees for three children. Grace, the eldest, watched the arithmetic tighten month by month until the family faced a decision no parent should have to make: which children could stay in school, and which could not. Grace was scheduled to leave. In many communities, that moment is where the story ends — a girl sent home, a talent left on the roadside, a lifetime of "what if." A community liaison officer from the Mama Nyuki Foundation visited Grace's school that same month. Within two weeks, she was enrolled in the Foundation's full educational sponsorship program: school fees, uniforms, textbooks, exam fees where needed, and a monthly mentorship session with one of our volunteer educators who checked in on more than grades — on confidence, health, and hope. "The support changed everything practically," Grace says. "Fees were paid; I had books. But what changed me inside was having someone who believed I was worth investing in — not as charity, but as a person with a future." She sat her KCSE examinations with steady preparation and scored a B+. That result unlocked a government scholarship. Combined with continued Foundation support for the gaps scholarships do not cover, she gained a place at Egerton University to study Agricultural Science. "I want to study sustainable farming and honey production," she tells us from her campus dormitory. "Because I want to come back and help the women in my community who are still doing the math my mother did. I want to be what my mentor was for me — someone who says, 'You are not finished.'" Grace is the first person from her village to attend university. At twenty, she carries both pride and responsibility: younger siblings watch her path; neighbours ask how sponsorship works; teachers use her name as proof that geography is not destiny. The Mama Nyuki Foundation currently sponsors twenty children in primary and secondary school, with plans to grow carefully and sustainably. Each full sponsorship costs about KSh 45,000 per year — a figure that sounds abstract until you translate it into one child staying in class, one family sleeping easier, one community gaining a professional a decade from now. Grace's journey reminds us that education is not only a classroom. It is a long chain of belief, logistics, and love — and every link matters.