Now entering his third year studying biochemistry at Moi University in Eldoret, Kenya, David first contacted ROTH by email, eloquently relating his story with a humour, straightforwardness and good sense which we’d come to know as the core of David’s personality.

Detailing his life from his birth in 1988 to the present in that first email, David recounted hardship after hurdle; after his mother abandoned 5-year-old David and his younger brother, David’s grandmother and care-giver suffered a stroke, leaving her physically handicapped and eating up the family’s modest income in expensive treatment. “We had to wash our clothes, cook for ourselves and tend our garden,” explained David in that first email. “We were regularly chased from school for fees. Our academic performance declined, but we kept on pushing. We practiced subsistence farming, and sold surplus to pay for school fees and uniform.”

In 2002, his grandfather, who had always supported his children’s and grandchildren’s pursuit of education, suffered from a mental health crisis, collapsing the fragile family economy. “ My grandma was crippled, my grandpa mentally sick, my mum nowhere to be seen and dad? I had never set my eyes on him,” wrote David.

Thanks to his grandmother, whom David described as “a mentally creative lady”, David was accepted at the International Children’s Mission, where he could attend secondary school. Then in 2006, ICM was abruptly closed by its director, and converted into a Bible School. By the time the government intervened and helped the few remaining students, including David, enroll at another school, he’d fallen far behind and was in a school that didn’t offer all his chosen courses; but not to be undone, David prevailed, achieving an overall A minus in his final exams of secondary school.

And that’s when David found us, after a few of his friends helped paint the Piave Maternity Ward. They urged David to email Frédérique and ROTH to sponsor his university education; at first asking to study medicine at Harvard University, David started his university career at Moi University in Kenya. His life’s struggle and his endless motivation to navigate himself through the (often bewildering) Kenyan university system have been an inspiration to ROTH and all its supporters for the past three years, and we can’t wait to see him on graduation day!

ROTH is proud to sponsor David’s education. If you would like to contribute to David’s scholarship, please make a donation.