By Jane Meza
Mombasa County, Kenya: Beneficiaries of Wings to Fly and Elimu Scholarship in Coast have undergone a three-day intensive training on value-based leadership at Shimo la Tewa School in Mombasa.
Equity Group Chief Commercial Officer Samuel Makome said there are 18 annual education and leadership congresses across the country with 18,000 scholars in form one and form two students.
The Wings to Fly mentorship programme holds two biennial congresses for scholars for form three and form four congress was held earlier in May this year.
“This scholar congress has been going on for three days. We brought in about 1300 young scholars in our wings to fly and Elimu Scholarship programme covering Mombasa, Taita-Taveta as well as Kwale and part of Kilifi,” said Samuel Makome.
According to Equity Group, the Chief Commercial Officer said they don’t only give academic and livelihood support instead they also install leadership skills and values through mentorship and provide tips on academic success.
“We also teach them how to give back to society, gender sensitivity. It’s a development programme. When the student is finishing his fourth year, he is a fully grown-up person who can give back to society and is also an academic success,” added Makome.
For more than 20 years Equity Bank has transformed the lives of students through its scholarships program Wings to Fly in partnership with the MasterCard Foundation and Ministry of Education by ensuring that those children coming from poor families and are doing well in their education get the support to complete their studies.
“The education programme is part of the social engine and we have always supported other partners like the MasterCard Foundation and the Ministry of Education, Equity is keen to churn out value-based leaders who will take over the mantle of leadership and transform the society,” said Makome.
Due to the huge number of students starving for education over the years, the mentorship programme has kept growing in the number of scholars and partnerships
“The category of learners is significantly disadvantaged; some of them come from very poor homes, and some of them left their villages for the first time. They require a lot of affirmations, training, and a lot of development and this is where we come in because these children need to be taught to be confident, to be self-aware, and to develop as a whole being,” added Makome.
Equity is proud to announce that Since the inception of the scholarship programme 82 percent of the beneficiaries have made it to universities both locally and Internationally whereby more than 1000 beneficiaries have been airlifted to study abroad in 35 countries, and 100 were flagged last month to join the world’s best universities in the country.
