Our Primary School Resources program improves literacy and high school eligibility of 11,500 children at 23 primary schools in rural western Kenya. 48% of the region’s population lives below the poverty line, with fishing and subsistence farming sustaining the majority of families. 40% of the region’s primary-aged school girls do not finish grade 8. Schools receive a total government allocation for textbooks of $1.35 per child per year. No local or family resources supplement this government funding.

While education is highly valued and viewed as the path out of poverty, children in these communities are unable to get a toehold on that path. The lack of Basic English readers and core subject textbooks in schools places students at severe disadvantage on competitive standardized tests, which determine students’ high school eligibility. Therefore Kenya Self Help Project works to provide supplemental texts to help improve student proficiency in our rural partner schools and thereby give opportunity for impoverished students to compete for high school placement and educational opportunity.