In order to serve the neediest and most academically motivated students our students are selected through a competitive application process that asses their desire and dedication to learn, academic aptitude, and financial situation. We interviewed 300 students for 45 spaces. Our selection was based on interviews with students and a basic assessment exam, family interviews, and several visits to the candidates home to assess their level of need. All of our students are incredibly academically gifted and unable to pay even a small fee to attend school. We focus on serving talented students most vulnerable to sexual abuse and prostitution, and without our school our students would face very grim futures. Many of our students are or street children or orphans, and many are HIV positive. To qualify for admittance parents must be dead or unemployed and without familial or other resources. Our school will grow with our students, meaning that during our first year we will start with pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, and first grade students.
(One note: Children in the Luo tribe are given a last name according to the time of day that they are born. While several of our children have the same “last names,” they are not related, as we only take one child per family).
Meet Our Pre-School Class
 Ashley Adhiambo
Ashley’s mother is single and only twenty-years-old. Her father left as soon as he found out that he was about to have a child. Ashley’s mother does not have a job, she survives by washing clothes whenever she can get work and earns only 300 shillings per month (the equivalent of $4). She leaves to look for work early every morning and doesn’t return until late at night, and says that she often worries about Ashley’s safety, as she is left alone and vulnerable in an area of Kibera infamous for rape and abuse of young girls. Now Ashley’s dream of visiting a real school is coming true along with her mother’s dream of finding a way to give her daughter a life that will be different from her own. Ashley loves to build with blocks. In school she often builds her “dream house,” a house with a roof, a fountain, and a single bag of maize. |
 Viviane Adhiambo
Viviane is four years old. She lives with her seventeen-year-old mother in Kibera. She has two younger siblings, and they live in a single room with no furniture and almost no belongings. Her mother recently ran away from her father, as he was terribly abusive to both her and the children and the family now lives in fear that he might find them. Viviane is a very happy child. Despite her difficult life, Viviane is always smiling and very independent. She loves to color, dance, and play. She wants to be a nurse when she grows up because, as she said, “Nurses make life hurt less.”‘ |
 Christine Adhiambo
Christine is nothing if not curious. She loves to explore, and loves to do science experiments. She is the youngest child in a family of seven children. None of her older siblings ever went past the second grade. Her parents never went to school either. Her five older sisters have all become teenage mothers, and the family’s main source of income is from prostitution. Christine has always had a mind of her own, after watching her sisters she declared at age three that she wants to be a nun when she grows up. Christine used to cry hysterically as she watched neighboring children going to school, and begged her mother to send her to school too. When her mother heard about the Kibera School for Girls she was so filled with gratitude that she began to cry. Christine will indeed be able to become a nun, or a scientist, or anything else that she might choose. |
 Lillian Achieng
Lillian is a quiet child, and she is exceptionally bright. She is only four years old, but she taught herself how to read three letter words when she was three-years-old. Lillian is HIV positive and often sick. She is the youngest of seven children. She lives with her single mother who cares for three AIDS orphans in addition to her own children. Before she started going to The Kibera School for Girls, Lillian ate one meal of only maize every other day. Lillian loves to play with number blocks, and loves to play imaginative games |