Co-operative Foundation Calls Upon Donors to Help Sponsor More Bright but Needy Students

Co-operative Bank of Kenya has called upon donors to chip in in its Co-operative Foundation to help sponsor more bright but needy students across the country.

The Co-operative Foundation is Co-operative Bank’s vehicle for social responsibility with the current flagship project being an education scholarship scheme for bright but needy students faced with difficulties in raising their fees to further their education.

The program began with the Form One class of 2007 and is meant to help them achieve their full potential. Across the country, the Foundation sponsors 60 students from seven regions every year by paying for their full school fees. After KCSE, out of the 60 being sponsored, 28 of them who attain best results are awarded scholarships for their University education.

Here are stories of some of the beneficiaries from the Foundation

Fred Muireri

Fred Muireri is a 22-year-old young man, who is currently on an internship programme at the Cooperative Bank of Kenya. Seeing him from a distance, one would mistake him to just an ordinary man but there is a success story behind him and behind his smile.

This young man was raised by a single mother who struggled her way out to make ends meet so that her only child, Fred, could at least have something for his stomach. He encountered a stranger who got him enrolled in a private community school which unfortunately closed down for funding reasons. It was the intervention of the local education officer, and a well-wisher that saw Fred sit for his Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE).

With luck, still on his side, he managed to be picked among the 60 students from their region to be sponsored by the Cooperative Bank Foundation. This was a dream come true for Fred, who happened to be the only one out of his other siblings to have gone beyond standard eight. The Foundation catered for all of his school fees for the four years that he was at Nkubu High School, where he sat or his Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) in 2013 and scored A-.

Passing greatly made him secure another scholarship from the foundation to be sponsored for his University education at Dedan Kimathi University where he was called to study actuarial science.

Being the first person to have studied beyond standard eight in his extended family, Fred feels that he is indebted to the community and would not want to take the foundations support for granted.  If given an opportunity, his wish is to contribute towards ensuring that children in similar situations have access to education just as he did.

He noted that education in Kenya tends to be very expensive in that children from poor backgrounds are not in a position to access it. This is why he called upon more sponsors to chip in and help increase the number of bright but needy student access education.

Margaret Wambui Kimani

Meet Margaret Wambui Kimani, another lucky beneficiary of the Co-operative Foundation program. Just like Fred, she talks less with shiny eyes and walks with calculated steps as though in a hurry to get something done known only to herself.

Margaret is a second-year student studying Bachelor of Arts degree course in Economics at the University of Nairobi. She comes from the central part of Kenya and comes from a family of three.

Being the lastborn, accessing education was a big challenge as her family had depleted the meager resources in an effort to support her older siblings. This situation meant that her career aspiration to work with a reputable international consulting firm as an auditor was just but a dream.

The support she has had from coop foundation has given her the hope she has always sought in pursuing her career. The foundation has not only supported her through secondary school but is also supporting her university education. Having discovered the value of giving, she would like to make this world a better place by supporting a child access education. She is also open to serve in any opportunity that will see her make a difference in another child’s life.

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