A Great Year Ahead - Expanding to Kajiado County
2023 has started in a big way for Light Up Hope. We have received funding to expand both our feeding and Woven programs while maintaining the 160 beneficiaries for our High School Program.
Given the massive expansion, the organization saw it necessary to involve both the target community and local government in the selection process of schools to benefit from the program. Indeed, by ensuring full participation, we gave the community an opportunity to own the initiative in the hopes that it will increase the impact of the program. Specifically, the organization formed a County Technical Committee, a team bringing together the Light Up Hope’s Staff and representatives of the two levels of government (National and County level) to work together in ensuring a successful implementation of our Programs in Kajiado County. The CTC consists of,
Structure and Roles of CTC
Director of Education at the County (TSC)
County Director of Education (CDE) at MoE
The County Executive Committee Member, Education.
County Commissioner.
County Director, Public Health
County Director of Children’s Services
One Sub County Director of Education
One Curriculum Support Officer
LUH Executive Director
LUH Designated staff
Representative special group (Gender)
2023 High School Scholarships
The committee’s first assignment was the selection of the 2023 High School Scholarship beneficiaries where the organization benefitted hugely from the members knowledge of the area and its dynamics
In the initial stages, it was the work of the CTC to receive all applications from aspirants and forward the same to LUH staff involved in the selection process. Upon the closure of the applications timeline, the CTC had a two days’ workshop to review the applications and select the beneficiaries based on the academic excellence and vulnerability levels. This was the initial selection. The selected students were then interviewed by the CTC which formed the second level of elimination and gave the students a chance to make their case face to face. The final list of 34 beneficiaries were informed by home visits jointly conducted by the CTC and the Light Up Hope staff as this was used to ascertain their level of vulnerability
Home visits to one of our incoming beneficiaries from Kajiado
Expansion of School Feeding Program
Secondly, the expansion of the feeding program from feeding 7320 beneficiaries in 2022 to 58290 (50970 in Kajiado and 2230 in Nairobi) in the year 2023. This has given the organization to contribute significantly towards mitigation of the impact of hunger on learning. The CTC again came in handy in ensuring that this transition was a success right from the selection to the delivery of food items to schools in readiness to the commencement of the feeding program.
Some of our Feeding program beneficiaries in Kajiado enjoying a local meal of beans and maize
Expansion of the WOVEN Department
The WOVEN department received additional funding to increase our beneficiaries from 85 students to 100 for the year 2023. With three beneficiaries transitioning, the organization will be enrolling 18 more beneficiaries into the program in the year 2023. All the WOVEN beneficiaries are drawn from the High School program beneficiaries who sat for their national exams in 2021 and 2022.
As indicated above, Light Up Hope is growing and we are honored to be part of the process of transforming thousands of lives in Kenya.
We are grateful to all our donors, including but not limited to Seeds of Change, who have made this possible. Indeed, we are matching towards LIGHTING A PATH OUT OF poverty.