Providing Opportunity and a Safe Haven for African Schoolgirls

Maryknoll helps build a dorm for 300 girls in a conflict-prone area of Kenya.

By Paul Jeffrey

Girls in southwestern Kenya have long had to walk up to three hours a day to and from school, a perilous journey through the isolated countryside. At risk of being assaulted, some girls dropped out of school rather than trek unprotected through the area’s rolling hills.

With help from Maryknoll, that dangerous odyssey is coming to an end with the construction of a dormitory at the Kebaroti Secondary School in Migori County. With beds for up to 300 girls between the ages of 12 and 20, the facility allows them to spend their time studying rather than risk their lives getting to school.

“In addition to protecting girls from the dangers of walking to school, the dormitory will help girls with disabilities to attend school, and will provide a safe haven for girls with unstable or unsafe conditions at home,” says Joseph Mahiri, the deputy governor of Migori County.

“Living in the dormitory will protect girls from negative cultural practices such as female genital mutilation, early marriage and child labor,” he says. “At home, girls often have to collect firewood, fetch water, cook, clean and take care of younger siblings, all while their brothers are allowed to study. By living on campus, the girls will be freed from those chores, thus allowing them to better compete with the boys.”

Long plagued by violent conflicts over land by competing ethnic groups, Migori County has some of the lowest rates of literacy and highest rates of poverty in Kenya.

Educating girls for Africa’s future

Maryknoll Father Lance Nadeau, the superior general of Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers, says that’s why Maryknoll got involved in helping local communities.

“If you really want to change a society, especially in Africa, women’s empowerment is the way to go,” Father Nadeau says. “Women hold the family together. They educate the children. They do most of the agricultural work. When you can empower women, whether with education or economic opportunities, you can have a big impact.”

Father Nadeau served for 18 years as a chaplain at Kenyatta University in Nairobi, and while visiting his students around the country, he came to know the areas with the greatest need. Several of his students came from Migori County. One of them is Mahiri, whom the missioner says returned to Migori after completing his education, determined to make local government responsive to the needs of the poorest citizens. Mahiri has shepherded the dormitory project to completion.

Students from Kebaroti Secondary School join Maryknoll Fathers Joshua Maondo (left) and Lance Nadeau, superior general of Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers (center), and Migori County Deputy Governor Joseph Mahiri (right) to celebrate a new dormitory that offers girls a safe place to live and study. (Courtesy of Lance Nadeau/Kenya)

“Our partnership with Maryknoll is allowing us to help hundreds of girls reach their full potential, achieve their dreams, and become tomorrow’s leaders,” Mahiri says.

The Maryknoll Society is also working to address ethnic conflict in the Migori region and is supporting some of the victims of the violence.

Land disputes in Migori go back generations, along with cattle rustling and other sources of conflict that occasionally lead to violence. Colonial favoritism toward certain tribes exacerbated these feuds, and in recent decades, population growth has pressured some communities to acquire more land by various means at the expense of other groups. Political leaders have often exploited ethnic loyalties to gain power, further fueling mistrust and violence. Efforts by religious leaders and government officials to foster reconciliation have had limited success.

Food assistance for impoverished families

For the last three years, Maryknoll has provided food assistance to more than 3,000 families displaced or otherwise adversely affected by intercommunal violence.

One of these is the family of Eunice Mariba Rawi.

Mariba Rawi lives in Gwitembe, a village at the center of a dispute between her Kuria community and neighboring Maasai communities. Her husband was killed in fighting in 2022, and her son was killed in 2025. Her family also lost all its farmland. Now, rather than sowing her own crops, the widow hires herself out as a day laborer to earn a few shillings to buy food at the market.

“Even when we still had land, we often couldn’t go cultivate anything because of the fighting,” she says. “Now that we have nowhere to farm, the oil, corn, rice and other food we received from Maryknoll means I can give my children something to eat each day.”

Father Nadeau says Maryknoll is committed to continuing to accompany the people of Migori as they work to overcome generations of conflict and live together in peace. He says that has to include economic development.

Despite the conflicts, the various ethnic groups in this region are similar in so many ways, he says. “Everyone has children, everyone gets sick, everyone dies, everybody has a mother. We all want the same things. So the commonality is there. The problem has become that the pie is not big enough. There’s not enough to go around.”

The missioner says in order to promote reconciliation among people, “we must also build up institutions and economic systems that give people reasons to invest in peace and cooperation rather than destruction and hatred. That’s the challenge for those of us who believe that reconciliation is at the heart of the Gospel.”

Featured image: Thanks to the construction of this dormitory in Migori County, southwestern Kenya, girls who previously faced dangers walking long distances through isolated areas to reach school now have access to education in a safe environment. (Paul Jeffrey/Kenya)