Kapkemich, Nandi County
A Community Education, Health & Entrepreneurial Initiative
Envision Kenya, based in the greater Kansas City area is working to bring educational, wellness, and entrepreneurial opportunities to community members of Kapkemich – a small, rural village in western Kenya.
The non-profits: Friends of St. Anne’s (FOSA), the Virginia Wright Health Clinic (VWHC) and The Water Room, an entrepreneurial endeavor, have grown into community-encompassing initiatives now managed by Envision Kenya.
Education, Wellness, and Opportunity in Kapkemich
St. Anne’s Girls School provides girls from Kapkemich and the surrounding areas a safe place to live and receive a quality education. Many girls in Kenya never get the opportunity to receive a proper education because of demanding national exam requirements, financial restraints, and time-hardened cultural norms. St. Anne’s Girls School is continually gaining status for their educational standards while Friends of St. Anne’s provides the vital scholarships and on-site housing these girls need to stay in school.
Community Medical Assistance & Health Education
To supplement the work of St. Anne’s Girls School, the Friends of St. Anne’s also helped found the Virginia Wright Clinic. The clinic provides medical assistance and health education to the surrounding community along with the girls at the school. It has become not only an incredibly helpful resource for Kapkemich, but also provides jobs for people in the village and shows the girls at the school some of the career options that are available to them after they finish school.
The growth of St. Anne’s Girls School and the Virginia Wright Health Clinic within Kapkemich has prompted Friends of St. Anne’s to extend the scope of their philanthropy. They are now working to address the community’s need for entrepreneurial opportunities. Achievable employment for long term self-sustainability is their goal for the community as a whole. Providing entrepreneurial education programs and vocational training in a wide array of different fields and trades allows for the people of Kapkemich to improve their own lives along with the girls attending St. Anne’s.