A very generous Husband and Wife who have two older daughters of their own have changed these two sister’s lives

These two young ladies are Ntatai who is 15 years old and her sister Silantoi who is 10 years old. They come from Loita Hill which is deep in the bush near the border with Tanzania.

How they knew about Merrow School is still a mystery.

Ntatai was to be married off earlier this year however one morning in January she woke up and decided to run away. She woke her sister very early and they left, just with the clothes they were in and walked for several hours through the bush until they found a man on a motorcycle (who thankfully was not of traditional views or he would have returned the or worse) and asked him to contact the school.

They were many hours’ drive from Merrow to the west nearer to the schools that we support in the Mara. Mercy contacted the mother of one of the girls that I support (she is from a loving home but they are very poor) and who I have known for quite a few years now. The mother, Lucy took a motorbike (around 2-3 hours each way) at Merrow’s expense out to where the girls were found and took them back to her house to safety until they could be collected and taken on the 5-hour onward journey to Merrow School.

They have received only limited education until now so are in academic years well below their age, however, this is not uncommon and they have settled in really well. Without a sponsor, the school will not be able to keep them beyond the end of this year. They have nowhere else to go.

Ntatai is in Grade 7 (there are 9 grades at Merrow, the last three being Junior High with different teachers) and then if they work hard and achieve the required grades they will move to a senior high school for grades 10,11 and 12, subject to us securing sponsorship for them at that time. Silantoi is in Grade 5.

Whilst Merrow regards education as important they also ensure that these children have an enjoyable childhood as well with many non-academic activities.

The sponsorship is £36 a month per child which pays for the school fees, uniforms, books, shoes, meals, etc. We then have other sponsors who help out funding their care away from school in safe houses during the holidays. We also run holiday camps for them when volunteers go out and help look after them and run activities.

We collect clothes from donors in the UK and take out large bags of them every time we go. Similarly, we collect old laptops (which WCA pays to have wiped here in the UK) out with us as currently even at the better schools there are typically 6-8 children sharing one laptop. They don’t need to be anything special as they mainly learn Word and keyboard skills.

A very generous Husband and Wife who have two older daughters of their own have changed these two sister’s lives and they will be beyond excited and relieved tomorrow when they are told the news that they won’t have to leave school at the end of this academic year.