Emmanuel Kai - University Update

Back in 2015, Emmanuel Kai began attending the University of Nairobi to study Economics and Statistics. He has been working away hard for the past 2 years and is now just more than halfway through his degree programme. Whilst we were in Kenya in September we were able to catch up with him in person and find out a little more about his experience and how he is getting on.

Having grown up on a farm just outside Mtwapa, one of the biggest changes Emmanuel has had to get used to is living in Nairobi. Emmanuel rents a room with a friend in an area called Nagra which is quite near to the University of Nairobi campus. This means he is generally able to walk to university unless it is dark when he gets one of the many public buses as street crime is common. Nairobi is around 1,500 meters above sea level and this means that it is cold; when Emmanuel first got to Nairobi he was shocked at how cold it was and his first purchase was a big thick jumper that wouldn't have been out of place at a ski lodge!

Emmanuel has always been very academic and we knew that he would thrive at university but when he first showed us his list of modules we started to worry how on earth he would have time to study so many different subjects. Each semester he takes 8 modules which range from core skills such as 'Aspects of Language Skills' to degree specific specialisms 'Economic Statistics (1, 2 & 3)'. Over the course of his degree he will study more than 60 modules and he is expected to obtain at least a D in every module in order to pass. To date he has been very successful getting a good number of As and Bs in a wide range of areas.

Emmanuel is spending the vast majority of his time studying but he does have a little time off to spend with friends. On a Sunday he attends a local church and he has started to learn how to roller skate!

We are very proud of Emmanuel, he is a real inspiration to the other children on the Milele programme and shows that with enough hard work anything is possible!