Some MWEEP Scholarship Recipients/Rescued Girls

I was not able to post since we didn't have internet access until the day we left in Nairobi. Then we had to deal with a 150 + emails on a slow computer.
We are now at our children's home in England. We had a relaxing uneventful trip here. Lucky for us Amanda got up at 5:00 am to pick us up. We left Nairobi at midnight and got in at 6:30 am.

Since I couldn't send out a blog each day, I'll be posting different pictures and stories over the next month.

The girls in the picture are receipents of MWEEP scholarships for school fees. They came to visit me Sunday after church. Some of them walked 1 - 2 hours one way to see me. They are amazing girls! You see beauty, strength, courage and a great of persistence. They have goals in mind and are doing what they can to achieve them.
I will share some of their stories in a later blog.

I met some of the parents in the process of getting to town. One of the best places to meet them was in Ngong Town. A purpose in going to town is to hang out and meet people. When a Maasai approaches someone or a group of people, you say a greeting and shake hands with EVERYONE. Some of them knew I was the masunga (white person) who was working with MWEEP and starting thanking me for the help to send their daughter to secondary school. If they didn't know who I was (there are other masunga volunteer around), once Rosemary or Lucy told them their faces lit up and they told me about their daughter going to school and thanked me a great deal. It was good to tell them that people in American care about them and want to help with getting their daughters educated. I was so pleased that these fathers were happy for the help to educate their girls. Many of the Maasai closer to Ngong are now enlightened (their word) about the benefits of an educated woman. Some brought beaded jewelry to give.

I was in Ngong the day before we left and the village chief from Kimuka made a point of coming over to talk with me. He was thankful for the help to the girls. Then we had a great discussion about the girls that still need to be rescued. If a father insists that his daughter get married and says NO to school, then she tries to explain to him why school is so important. If he still says she has to be married, she goes to the village chief. He will then go to the father. IF the father doesn't change his mind, then he will let the girls stay at his house and try to get her into a secondary school. Since is was vacation time, the girls need a place to stay. Some fathers will let their girls come back home for vacation and then let them go back to school for the next term. Other girls need to find a place to stay and are sometimes taken to relatives. The day we met the chief, he was taking a girl to another town so she could stay with her relatives.

In spite of seeing evidence of progress and more girls attending school, there is still such a great need for funding and for giving any girl/woman who wishes to go to school and opportunity to do so.