Femme Staff
Few things touch my heart as much as when youngsters are given opportunities to shine and build their lives. Many instances abound and one that particularly shines for me is the Equity Wings to fly that carries with it other sub programs like the Equity Leaders Programme among others. Taking mentor-ship and confidence among our youth to a whole other level.
I’ve been in the presence of these kids severally and documented a story here and there and I must say that this touches me to the core. Like this young girl Sarah who I met in Kasarani back in 2016, who had always had big dreams that were marred by the very real possibility of female genital mutilation and later becoming a child bride and basically wasting her academic life. She’s now enabled to dream of fbecoming a civil engineer, something that she already has in mind. Along with Sarah were many other bright kids who have had their lives transformed through the various programs that Equity has to empower them. You can read some of their stories here.
So far, the Equity Bank Airlift Program which is also part of Wings to Fly, has secured university admissions for 465 scholars in universities abroad, including Ivy League Institutions. This year the bank has secured full scholarships for 64 beneficiaries on full scholarships.
The caliber of institutions we’re looking are here are such as Harvard which has taken in 22 scholars so far, University of British Columbia (13), Yale (13), Stanford University (7), Princeton (7), Duke (14), University of Pennsylvania (14), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T) (6), Amherst College (10), Brown University (7), Cornell University (15), Dartmouth College (8), Michigan State University (9), University of Toronto (15), University of Edinburg (5), University of California, Berkeley (9), Carnegie Mellon (3) and African Leadership University (12) among others.
And the bank is not just sending the 64 out to school on scholarships. It is also adding a stipend of between Kshs100,000 and 200,000/- for their other essentials other than study.
This sure is an opportunity to study to the fullest and excel, network and get global exposure and these are things that Equity Group CEO and Executive Chairman advised the young men and women to take advantage of. This global exposure is a once in a lifetime chance that will shape the mindsets of the young scholars, who will then inspire other secondary school students back here in Kenya to work hard and believe in their dreams.
These are the kind of thought leadership programs that will change our communities and our country for the better with time, thanks to Equity Bank.
