Timothy and His Giving Tree
Timothy’s grandmother gave him two gifts before she passed away. The first was a small gourd, meant to symbolize giving. The gourd only darkened if he gave to others. “The darker the gourd, the richer his life will be,” she told him. At the time, Timothy didn’t believe he had anything to give. He was […]
10 Reasons Zoe Empowers is Unlike Other Children’s Charities
Zoe Empowers started as a relief-based organization with short-term, marginal results. In the early 2000s, the AIDS pandemic devastated communities in sub-saharan Africa, leaving hundreds of thousands of orphaned children in its wake. Globally, there was a push to donate to Africa, support orphan charities, sponsor an orphan, and fundraise for an orphanage. Zoe Empowers […]
A new door opens for Faith
Faith still remembers the day she knocked on her uncle’s door. It wasn’t long after the death of her parents. She was fifteen, and her younger brother, Martin, was eight. They hadn’t eaten in several days, and Faith was beginning to fear they wouldn’t survive on their own. After a few seconds, the uncle’s new […]
Risper rises up to challenge gender bias
After three years of running her own grocery business, Risper has a system. At a market in rural Kenya, she piles tomatoes and green peppers into neat, heaping rows. She adds onions and papaya to the table then arranges stacks of cilantro before chopping cabbage and lettuce to sell in individual bags. Across the aisle, […]
Winfred’s rise to resilience and motherhood
Nearly three years ago, on a warm July afternoon in Kenya, Winfred grabbed a jerry-can and walked toward the river. The task of gathering water was standard for the seventeen-year-old, who had acquired the role of primary caretaker for her four younger siblings. Their mother had become an alcoholic following the death of their father, […]
An Unexpected Challenger
When Ann married a man she barely knew at age 14, she believed the union was the only quick fix to escape her household, where an abusive step-father made life unbearable. Ann’s situation is not uncommon in Kenya, a country ranking 18th highest in the world for the absolute number of women married or in […]
Josephat’s Bridge to Success
Josephat always felt like his ambition never aligned with his life circumstances. He loved to be in school, but his parents could not afford the fees. There were often gaps in his enrollment, dropping out to work for several weeks or months at a time. Then, inevitably, through sheer will and determination, he would scrape […]
One Big Sister’s Great Responsibility
Growing up as an only child, Millicent had a close relationship with her parents. Their family blended into the conventional standards of the rural Kenyan village in which they resided: A breadwinner father who provided a comfortable life for his family. Millicent attended school, lived in a safe home, had access to nutritious meals, water, […]
Shifting gender norms through education in rural Kenya
Lidiah was born with a love for education. As a young girl, sitting inside a small, one-roomed classroom, learning new subjects and socializing with her peers was her favorite pastime, and it showed in the high marks she received from her teachers. She didn’t know it then, but she was one of the lucky ones, […]
Crisis resiliency is a marathon, not a sprint
When learning a new skill, the second attempt is always a little easier than the first. On the third and fourth try, there is a sense of familiarity. By the fifth, tenth, twentieth time and beyond, muscle memory kicks in as we work toward mastery. The concept of repetition is proven true whether the goal […]