FALL 2023 UPDATE FROM THE FIELD

MORE NEW SCHOOLS THANKS TO POWERFUL PARTNERSHIPS!

Olmesutie’s opening day celebration was an especially joyful one, and the community intensely proud of the part they played in helping fund and build the school through their “One Goat, One Classroom” initiative, which is now catching on across the region and helping build a powerful momentum for education among local families.

Among the people joining us for the school celebration in Olmesutie were a number of conservationists who’d been attending the nearby Women in Nature Network (WINN) conference in Nairobi, including Leeanne Alonso, Rebecca Kormos and her daughters Tess and Chloe, and Courtney Brown and her daughters Ava and Ally. Courtney is the grandniece of Alice C. Tyler, a child of immigrants who wasn’t able to receive the educational opportunities she hoped for herself as a young woman, but who went on later in life to ensure that hundreds of other hopeful young girls around the world do get that opportunity through a trust she created with her family. Alice’s vision for a better world combined with her descendants’ generosity, combined with the similar generosity of longtime supporters Marge and Jerry Gavenda, were key to funding Olmesutie's final classrooms and making them a reality. High school students Ava and Tess are continuing this vision by funding a pilot program to provide sanitary pads and starting clubs at their high schools to help fundraise and raise awareness of the girl’ challenges where we work in Kenya.

Our ability to support each communities’ vision and effort only happens thanks to the generosity of people like Courtney, Marge and Jerry, and Alice C. Tyler’s other descendants plus countless others. You can learn more about the school building initiative they supported here. As we write these words, our third high school - Enairebuk/Olorte, is completing its first two classrooms and two others are fundraising to start building their new day seconary schools.