Former South Hills resident looks to make more of a difference in Kenya
Harry Funk / The Almanac
Hekima Place founder Kate Fletcher is pictured during a 2017 visit to St. Thomas More Church in Bethel Park. The congregation has provided substantial support for her nonprofit organization.
Architectural rendering of Hekima Academy by Rajinder Soin, the first woman to graduate from the architectural department of Nairobi University, who serves on the Hekima Place Board of Trustees
Childhood jokes about burning down the school take on a startling reality in Kenya, as more than 120 such cases of arson were reported in the African nation last year.
Investigators have arrived at a common cause involving the students’ teachers and administrators, according to Kate Fletcher.
“Every kid they’ve talked to said, ‘They disrespect us. We count for nothing. They don’t listen to us. They don’t help us,'” the former South Hills resident reported.
She wants to address the issue by expanding the work of Hekima Place, a home for orphaned and vulnerable girls near Kenya’s capital of Nairobi, where she lives and serves as director.
“We need to have a truly Christian high school that will be based on respect and love,” said Fletcher, who founded the home in 2005. “We have to vet teachers and the principal very strictly.”
Hekima Place – the name means “wisdom” in Swahili – has embarked on a capital campaign to raise $2.8 million, the estimated cost to build a new secondary education facility on the campus in Kiserian, Kajiado County.
“We started Hekima Place so that we could love some orphans and have them go to school. That’s what can’t happen when their parents die, or when they’re abused or abandoned,” Fletcher said during a recent U.S. visit to help drum up support.
“Part of that dream of loving them and educating them would include going as far as they can go.”
Such opportunities tend to be limited for the girls in her charge, who often are developmentally delayed because of the circumstances of their early years.
“They often don’t get good marks in eighth grade, so they can’t go to wonderful high schools,” Fletcher explained. “They go to second-rate and third-rate high schools.”
And at those institutions, problems could crop up beyond the school fires.
“When you start looking at the statistics, we lose them to pregnancy or alcohol or any other outside influence when they’re in high school,” Fletcher said. “The most logical thing for us to do, and the best gift we could give to our community, would be to open a high school.”
Her goal also is to open one that has sufficient staffing, equipment and educational materials to meet students’ needs:
“I want a high school that has 30 computers and 30 microscopes and 30 of everything where there are 30 girls,” she said. “How do you learn a computer when you’re four bodies back, looking at the person sitting at the keyboard?”
Parishioners in her home church, St. Thomas More Catholic in Bethel Park, have been extremely supportive of the Hekima Place mission. Among them is Marianne McClain, who has supported the home since its inception and serves on its board of directors.
“My first trip over, I couldn’t stop crying the whole time I was there,” she recalled. “I was so overwhelmed with the poverty and the need.”
Hekima Place has addressed some of the need by providing care for 10 girls at the start, and the number has climbed to 85, including nearly half who board elsewhere while attending high school and college. The intent is to continue hosting the ninth- through 12th-graders in a safe, nurturing environment.
“This isn’t just for our girls. This is for other orphans, too,” McClain said. “It’s going to be such a quality high school that we will attract families that can afford the tuition. So the idea is to make this a self-sustaining high school.”
Fletcher also is looking at the bigger picture with the vision for what will be called Hekima Place Academy.
“I think we could make a difference for the community,” she said. “A high school is the greatest gift we could give to Kajiado County.”
For more information, visit www.hekimaplace.org.