Alice Mwanaidi, 17, is determined to give back to society because she feels the society helped revive her dreams that had been dashed, thanks to poverty.
Her passion is teaching and she hopes her will and drive will help inspire hope in many children, especially the girl child, through education.
She wants to pursue a career in the education sector and she is eagerly waiting for that calling letter from a university in Nairobi.
She got a B plain in the 2022 KCSE from Bura Girls high school in Taita Taveta County.
“I had lost hope when my parents told me they could not afford to take me to secondary school after scoring 357 marks in the 2018 KCPE at Mikindani primary school,” she tells the Star after a long pause.
She stares at her own hands as they constantly lock and unlock playfully at the Jomvu CDF office on Friday.
She would not have got here were it not for one of the officers working in this office.
The officer, who is her neighbour, informed Jomvu MP Badi Twalib of her plight.
The MP immediately put her in the Jomvu Presidential Scholarship Program.
The program identifies bright but needy students and provides full secondary school scholarships for them.
Mwanaidi is among the 328 students who have benefitted from the program in Jomvu since it was established in 2017.
This year, 67 students will benefit from it.
MP Twalib on Friday issued cheques worth Sh681,586 for them.
The 67 will be catered for the whole of their four-year stay in secondary school.
The MP said he is establishing another program where the program’s beneficiaries who have graduated with degrees in different fields will voluntarily offer their services to Jomvu residents.
“This will be a way for the beneficiaries to give back to society,” Twalib said.
“So that if you went through this program and you did law, you can come to this constituency office and offer legal services free of charge to the community.”
He said he has seen lawyers, doctors, nurses, teachers and other professionals who have gone through the program make a career out of themselves.
However, those who graduate will be talked to so they can offer their services to the Jomvu residents pro bono as they wait for employment.
Twalib said this will be one of the ways through which the service providers gain experience before they get employment.
“This way, their CVs will be strengthened and be more attractive to potential employers. When the county wants to employ more nurses, for instance, they will look at those who volunteered in their facilities and give them priority,” Twalib said.
He urged parents to ensure their children work hard in school so as not to miss such opportunities even when they struggle with their fees.
There are many opportunities for bright and needy students, he said.
These include the Jomvu Constituency Scholarship Program which also works similarly to the Jomvu Presidential Scholarship Program.
For the constituency program, 40 students are identified and incorporated into it each year.
Twalib said he will ensure Mwanaidi is also sponsored through her university education until she graduates.
“Then she will also help teach in some of the schools in Jomvu voluntarily as a way of giving back to the society,” he said.
Mwanaidi said she is more than willing to offer her services to Jomvu residents.
