\u2018The content of a book holds the power of education and it is with this power that we can shape our future and change lives\u2019 \u2013 Malala Yousafzi<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Christine Riziki is a tall sixteen-year-old girl. She is an ever smiling young lady. Riziki is soft spoken but when she speaks, she shares her heart with no reservations. Her other name Riziki, is Kiswahili meaning daily bread or daily survival. Ironically that is just what Riziki has never been assured of almost her entire life \u2013 surviving beyond the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Christine Riziki is the last born from a family of two children. Riziki\u2019s mother is a forty-year-old single mom. She is a widow who lost her husband when Riziki was just but a small girl. Riziki\u2019s mother works in a mine where she earns less than 50 US dollars per month. Unfortunately, in the last few years, Riziki\u2019s mother has experienced poor health that makes her output in the mine dismal. This only assures her of reduction in her daily earnings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Riziki had all reasons to give up on life and her education. She had seen her older sister drop out of school due to lack of school fees. Her sister has been taking menial jobs. At times, the sister found herself involved in sexual relations with men to help her family survive. Riziki\u2019s sister now has two children whom she has left to the care of her ailing mother. During her primary school, Riziki never had books to study. She was forced to rely on borrowed text books for her studies which were very hard to get.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite all these challenges, Riziki managed to score 297 marks out of a possible 500 marks in her Kenya Certificate of Primary Education in 2018. This was way above what majority of other students across Kenya scored in Kenya Certificate of Primary School (KCPE). Riziki believes she could have scored at least 340 marks if she enjoyed better learning conditions in her primary education. UNESCO reports that access to quality education in Sub Saharan Africa is severely challenged. Students from poor backgrounds face several limitations in their pursuit of elementary education and which inevitably affect their performance. Kenya Teachers Service Commission report of 2016 observes that children from poor backgrounds in Kenya will struggle to access learning and teaching materials. This puts them at a disadvantage in performance compared to well-resourced students mostly in private schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Riziki had resigned to the same fate of her older sister; terminating her education at primary school level, perhaps to start working as a house help somewhere, join her mother in the mine or worse still get married young. Then ACLAD\u2019s partner organisation Kilifi Watoto Center knocked at her door with life changing news! Steve and Becky offered to sponsor Christine through ACLAD\u2019S USA based partner organisation Africa\u2019s Kidz. She was assured of full sponsorship through her secondary education with all required provisions covered. It is the text books part that has Riziki all smiling. \u2018I scored 297 with almost no text books to revise from. I now have all the books I need and good teachers. Why should I not score an A in KCSE? (The highest grade possible in Kenya secondary school final examinations)\u2019. Riziki dreams of becoming a doctor so that she could help her ailing mother and other hard working women in Ganze, Kilifi County.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Christine is grateful to her sponsors and says, \u201cthank you for the support. You have made me to be proud and victorious! I didn\u2019t have expectancy of going to school. May God bless you!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" THE VALUE OF TEXTBOOKS: CHRISTINE\u2019S STORY \u2018The content of a book holds the power of education and it is with this power that we can shape our future and change lives\u2019 \u2013 Malala Yousafzi Christine Riziki is a tall sixteen-year-old girl. She is an ever smiling young lady. Riziki is soft spoken but when she […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aclad-hq.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4768"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aclad-hq.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aclad-hq.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aclad-hq.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aclad-hq.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4768"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/aclad-hq.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4769,"href":"https:\/\/aclad-hq.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4768\/revisions\/4769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aclad-hq.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}