Many parents have been facing hardship due to high cost of living and therefore paying school fees has proved an uphill for them.
However, one of the girls school in Soysambu- Mitua ward in Tongaren constituency called Namunyiri girls has had to create it’s unique way of making sure that bright but needy students stay in class by the school through their able principal Mrs. Tabitha Andami Sumba taking up the responsibility of paying fees.
Addressing the media in the school, Mrs. Sumba said when she joined the school a few years ago the population was low and parents from within the community had lost hope of the school due to poor results and were taking their children in other schools which were far regardless of the school having good and adequate facilities.
Mrs. Sumba said she sat with the board and developed a plan to go to the villages to hunt down for students and when it did not yield results, they reduced expenditure and created a scholarship kitty known as Namunyiri scholarship which has been paying for more than 35 students and some have made it to University since it started.
“We had to find a way to help the needy students in the community and therefore we teamed up with the surrounding primary schools and promised that any pupil who scores more than 300 marks and is from the needy family we will support two from each primary school and that helped in increasing the number of students which is supposed to be a two stream school but it was only one,” revealed Mr. Sumba
She says the scholarship has not only improved in the enrollment alone but has also cultivated hard work within the pupils who would wish to be included in our scholarships.
However, she says the numbers have increased and therefore it is becoming hard for the school to accommodate all of them and therefore appealing to well-wishers to chip in and support them so that the needy students can accomplish their dreams.
The school has also started some projects like poultry and tree planting which is geared to improve the income and support the scholarship to accommodate more students but capital had been the biggest challenge and again an appeal is made to good samaritans and the government to support the good course.
Some students who have benefited from the scholarship hailed it saying it has really helped them to achieve their goals.