Esther Naini (1995) is one of many Maasai Girls who, with the help of Hellen Nkuraiya, managed to escape from female genital mutilation and forced marriage in exchange for a few cows. Hellen is a very special Maasai woman who has been working for girls like Esther Naini for years. She is providing shelter and education for these Maasai girls with her school Enkiteng Lepa. She has also set up a shelter village for Maasai widows.

In August 2018 Esther Naini was able to start her study at Daystar University (Athi River Campus) Bachelor of Arts in Community Development thanks to the support of StandUp4talent. With this study she wants to prepare herself for the continuation of the good works of Hellen. In this way she wants to contribute to her community and offer Maasai Girls the opportunities that she herself has been given thanks to Hellen.

In October 2022, she graduated and that hit the national headlines! The Kenyan public television broadcasted a report (https://youtu.be/DJXKdT_ixGM) of the wonderful party her community organised for her. They are super proud of her and so are we!
But as long as it is still national news that a Maasai girl is graduating, there still is a lot of work for us to do.

The university was also very proud of her. The university magazine Daystar Connect published a 2-page interview about our super-student.

During her studies, in her free time, she continued to support Hellen by helping the organisation of Hellen’s school Enkiteng Lepa.

At the university she was elected to represent the students of her faculty in the student council.

Esther Naini also took part in an ecological project that involved planting 1000 trees in a local community.

At the end of her studies, Esther Naini organised a major project that hit national news (https://fb.watch/gqDKrc3znc/) in Kenya!
She visited the school of Hellen with 60 students from Daystar University. Together they donated food and planted trees. This way, Esther Naini wanted to show her deep gratitude to Hellen and her school for rescuing her from forced marriage and circumcision (FGM). Almost graduated, she and her fellow students were able to give something back to Hellen and her amazing school with this beautiful project.

We are very proud of Esther Naini, it was a pleasure to sponsor her and we wish her lots of success in continuing all her good works. We will keep following her and probably stay proud for a long time that we have been able to contribute to all the good things she will do for her community in the future.