Education as a Path to Progress: Celebrating John’s Achievement

Congratulations, John, for your excellent score at the secondary school level national exams!

2018: We sat in our Nairobi office to design our Scholars Empowerment Program (SEP), our high school sponsorship program. Thinking through the program was not a walk in the park. Fully aware of the challenges facing education, especially, in rural South Sudan, we braced on and created SEP’s blueprint. We knew the actual path would be different from the one we envisioned but chose optimism. 

We mobilized HFA’s team in South Sudan to help us select potential candidates for the program, create sponsorship policies, and identify budget schools for our students. We pitched the program to our supporters and raised school fees for 2 girls and 2 boys who formed the first cohort.

We quickly identified areas of need and started the Bany Akolda leadership training program to help build the necessary capacity for the students to intrinsically address their needs. The sponsorship program took a better trajectory with every effort we made despite how trivial it looked. The scholars developed stronger resilience and focus on education after every leadership training workshop.

Today, we celebrate John for demonstrating a growth mindset during the Bany Akolda leadership training workshop and eventually applying the knowledge to improve his high school performance. He recently graduated from high school and scored 76.30%, which grants him direct university admission.

John’s victory at the high school level is truly commendable and heartwarming given the obstacles he overcame. Education in rural South Sudan is very demanding. Transitioning from enrollment in grade 1 to finishing 12th grade is an arduous journey.

University education will greatly increase John’s luck for a better life. In most cases, a university degree holds weight in the employment market – especially in Africa. As a result, we see John as someone who is on the verge of breaking communal barriers and using education to change his life, a key indicator of HFA’s progress in the direction of alleviating poverty through education.

John’s success story inspires us to support more young people from rural South Sudan and beyond to access quality education and improve their lives.

Thanks to our supporters for enabling John and the other SEP Scholars to access high school education. We have won again. Every dollar given to HOPE has an impact on the rural community of South Sudan.

I want to give to help more kids to access quality education. Give here.