Official launch Maasai Secondary School in Kenya

Nearly 2.500 people on Sept. 26 celebrated the official launch of the new secondary school in the Maasai Esiloyia Community in Kenya.

The Oloyiankalani School, founded by ChildsLife, provides education up to 200 students who previously had little opportunity to attend school beyond the fifth grade.

Before the construction of Oloyiankalani, the closest secondary school was hours away from the Esiloyia Community, meaning children who wanted to attend were forced to leave their homes and villages and pay for boarding fees to stay there.

Most families in Esiloyia were neither able to pay the fees nor willing to send their children that far away. Instead of going to school, most of the community’s children married young or spent their days raising the family livestock.

The new Oloyiankalani school not only teaches the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic, but it also provides classes on the latest techniques in livestock management – the primary means of existence for the Esiloyia Community. Through the school, local children are learning the skills they need to improve the lives of themselves and their families.

Plans are now in the works to expand the school with more classrooms and a dormitory for girls. ChildsLife has been working with Maasai communities in Kenya for nearly ten years. Building schools, providing health care, feeding children and bringing hope to poor families.

To celebrate the new Oloyiankalani school, ChildsLife representatives joined the more than 2.000 community members for a day dancing, speeches and food for all. And students showed their pride in the new school by wearing T-shirts proclaiming “Education for All – A New Dawn.”