Meet Ann who finally started her tertiary education in late 2020 after the pandemic delayed the start of her course and challenged her commitment to learning.

She is the 7th born child in a family of 8 siblings – 4 sisters and 3 brothers. Of her 4 sisters, two are already married. One of them completed her high school education but couldn’t continue with her college studies because of lack of finances while the other pursued a Diploma in Nursing until she got married. The other 2 are self employed or still studying.

Ann is very passionate about Technology related stuff and dreams of working as an IT specialist in a bank. Ann said ‘It usually bothers me when I see how people from remote/rural areas struggle to access technological related services in a world where almost everything has moved to technology.’

Ann attended Kakenya’s Center of Excellence from Year 4 and completed her high school education at Hill School, Eldoret in late 2019. She was accepted to study a Bachelor’s degree in Business and Information Technology at the Technical University of Mombasa and was due to start in 2020 until the Covid-19 virus arrived in Kenya. As a result of the pandemic universities and schools were closed for the majority of the year. During the lockdown Ann returned to her village to stay with her aunt as her parents died when she was still young.

Instead of starting her degree as planned, Ann kept herself busy at home volunteering and mentoring younger students. She was also one of the lucky few who was able to start her degree online. Without electricity at her home this was a significant challenge. She used a solar charger to power her technology and ‘hot spotted’ from her phone to access the Internet.

At first, when she started her Business and IT course she had some challenges with the Business related units as her main focus had been on IT however she is catching up now. Ann passed all her first semester exams but didn’t perform so well as she hoped as the school did not inform the students that they would have examinations a week after they arrived on campus and so she was not fully prepared. Her learning challenge was compounded by the fact that almost all her tertiary studies up to that point had been completed online.

She recently told us that ‘My university experience is improving each day. I feel much better now, unlike the first time when I joined the school. When we reported to the campus in November, after doing online classes, we were ambushed with an exam. That gave me a lot of tension, but now I’m doing well.’

Now Ann is almost 21 years old. She is in the second semester of her first year which will end in November. She is working hard to improved her performance in her end of semester examinations which are expected in October/November. Ann wants to say to all her supporters, ‘Thank you so much for the support you have afforded me to pursue my dream.’

Women for Change wish Ann well with her exams. We are proud to be supporting her studies and her ambition to work in IT.