Growth Through Learning

Many deserving and talented young women and girls in east Africa are unable to attend secondary school simply because their families are poor and cannot afford the required school fees, uniforms, books, and supplies. Even primary school can be prohibitively expensive in a land where most people live on $1 per day. Yet research has shown that educating girls is the single most effective way to lift east African countries out of poverty.

Growth Through Learning addresses this problem by providing high school and college scholarships to deserving girls and young women in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. We believe that educating women, more than anything else, will help create a better society and a more meaningful way of life. Girls who receive an education pass their learning on to their own children, families, and communities, creating “virtuous circles” that spread from one community to another, eventually leading to country-wide change. Just one additional year of schooling can increase a girl’s earning potential by 10 to 20 percent.

We started in 1998 with twelve scholarships. We have grown steadily, and this year have given scholarships to more than 315 girls and young women, for a total of more than 1,900 scholarships over the last decade. Some of the first girls we sponsored are now starting careers as teachers and nurses, helping to give the same hope to others that Growth Through Learning gave to them.