IRENE: INCREASING OPPORTUNITIES THANKS TO NEW SCHOOLS

Eleven-year-old Irene lives near Morijo, a market center that became home to the first primary school in the Loita Hills in 1951. Morijo also houses a clinic, a few corrugated metal shops, and the first day secondary school we helped to open in the Loita Hills in 2020. Irene’s daily life illuminates a typical day for countless young Maasai girls who live there. She lives in a one room, corrugated sheet-roofed house that she shares with her parents and two siblings. There is no electricity; the family relies on firewood for heat and the light that Irene studies by. She wakes each day at 6 AM so she can help her family collect firewood, fetch water, and clean the house before walking the 3KM to primary school, where she is in fourth grade. The walking path she takes to Morijo Primary crosses several large, eroded gullies that flood during the rainy season, creating dangerous crossings.

 Despite these challenges, Irene also has much going for her. Though the family is economically poor, there is much joy and laughter and love between family members as they go about their daily tasks. She has a supportive extended family that is encouraging of her education, including several aunts and uncles who have earned university degrees. Irene would love to become a teacher when she is older. Thanks to their encouragement and support and the new secondary school we opened with the community of Morijo in 2020, the chance that she’ll be able to attain that dream is vastly increased despite her family’s economic circumstances.