Dear Sponsors and Friends, Hope that this New Year is wonderful for you, your family and friends. We have just celebrated our third graduating class from Tembea Academy. Twenty seven girls graduated and many sponsors joined us for the celebration. Sponsors usually spend several days after graduation volunteering. Everyone can help from reading to our nursery students to teaching internet skills. Sponsors often continue with a safari. We hope that you will join us next January for this once in a lifetime experience. All our high school graduates spend one year giving back to their communities. They work as teachers in our primary school before they are eligible to attend college with your very generous sponsorship. Our girls are studying teaching, geology, project management, internet technology, and nursing to name a few majors. Our goal is to prepare our girls to be successful young women, critical thinkers, with a strong character and commitment to their families, communities and the nation. Four of our graduates work at our high school as teachers and another one is our accountant.
Diana #212 began her sponsorship in 2003 in 6th grade. Shortly after she was featured in Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper raising awareness for girls’ education. She attained her B.S. in mathematics at Kenyatta University, Nairobi, Kenya. Now, she teaches math and business at Tembea Academy. She is also our photographer and Director of Communications.
Diana and her daughter Nikky
She is married, selected her own husband and has one adorable little girl. Diana says, “I come from a humble background with many siblings. If it were not for Beads, I would have been married off at a tender age, live in the village forever and never achieve my dreams to be a person of substance for my community. I am eternally grateful to Beads for Education.'“
Ann Wambui #9 proudly stands with her husband and two children. She graduated from college in 2014 with a B.S. in geology. She worked with a major geotechnical firm as a lead geologist determining the safety of a building on a plot of land. She just opened her own geotechnical firm. “My mother was the best tea picker in Kenya, but she did not earn enough money to support us. She had to send me to live with a guardian. I graduated top of my class in 8th grade. Everyone was so happy for me BUT I was so sad. I cried many nights because I had no hope of going to high school. Then a miracle happened. I received a BEADS sponsorship and I sang with joy. . If it were not for BEADS I would have been married off as young as 13 into a life of poverty”, Ann reminisces.
Ann Wambui’s family
Florence Ekuri # 11 pictured in her Kenya Wildlife Service uniform. She is studying to be a field guide and will be one of the few Kenyan women in this field. Her sponsorship in 9th grade rescued her from the war torn regions of Kenya. She lost her family during this war and arrived on our doorstep with a determination to receive an education. We are so proud of her and know that she will have a successful life.
Florence in her KWS Uniform
Thank you from all the sponsored girls, their families and communities.
Debby Rooney/BEADS Cofounder