My dream to become a doctor could be ruined

By Stanley Ongwae                 

Migori, Kenya: Seated on a rock beside a rubble of what used to be her late parents’ house, Joyce Robi sobs with her admission letter in her hand.

Failing to join her dream secondary school is the third dilemma the 15-year-old is facing.

She had been successfully rescued from the menacing jaws of female genital mutilation and a forced early marriage situation, practices that are very common in the Kuria community of Migori County.

After the rescue, she won a scholarship to study at a girls’ rescue centre at Taranganya Girls Boarding Primary School where she sat her Kenya Certificate of Primary Education examinations and scored 379 marks.

Ever since the results were announced, Robi has prayed fervently for help to enable her join secondary school.

For more than three weeks now, she has been holding onto the hope that she would find a Good Samaritan to hold her hand and lead her to Karima Girls High School in Rift Valley.

She lacks school fees to pursue her dream of becoming a doctor.

At her home in Buremagongo village in Kuria, desperation continues to stalk her ambitions. Her father died when she was two years old while her mother passed on two years ago, leaving her with two brothers.

The abject poverty the family lived in exposed her to circumcision that would culminate in a forced marriage.

Luckily, she was rescued by a provincial administrator immediately after the marriage proposal.

At the time, she was in Class Five and that was when she was taken to Taranganya Girls’ School. Her mother died of rabies after she was bitten by a wild dog.

Her elder brother cannot support her since he does not have a job that can sustain the required fees of Sh100,000 per year.

She was to report to school a week ago, but has been unable to contact the school administration.