Starehe was foun­ded in 1959, not as a school but as a “place of safety”. Street chil­dren came to eat and receive med­ical help there. It was also street chil­dren who became the first pupils at the board­ing school. The school star­ted mainly as a trade work­shop for car­pentry, brick­lay­ing and roof­ing, before a gram­mar school was estab­lished in 1967 and a tech­nical col­lege was added in 1977. Today it is still the object­ive of the school to offer chil­dren from dif­ficult back­grounds a good edu­cation. At the same time the school lead­ers focus on char­acter build­ing with their exclus­ively male stu­dents. About 80% of the pupils are reli­ant on a schol­arship, and they learn to give back to soci­ety in return. Social com­mit­ment in the com­munity is a mat­ter of course for the Sta­heri­ans. Even long after they have gradu­ated the alumni are com­mit­ted to the next gen­era­tions at their school. Starehe Boys’ Centre and School is con­sidered the epi­tome of excel­lent edu­cation in Kenya.

Meet­ing our schol­arship recip­ients in per­son in Nairobi in Octo­ber 2023 inspired us to extend our sup­port of the Round Square stu­dents bey­ond the end of school. Although they were very thank­ful for our sup­port dur­ing their school years, they were very unsure and anxious about their future, as they didn’t know how they would be able to afford their voca­tional train­ing or uni­ver­sity stud­ies. Speak­ing to the head­mas­ter after­wards sealed the deal. Whenever pos­sible we also want to sup­port “our” schol­arship recip­ients on their way to a pro­fes­sion.