Education Pillar

In 2013, we awarded both partial and full scholarships to a total of 56 high school students, among them children of Liberty Life Assurance Kenya Ltd employees, policyholders, with some of them being from disadvantaged families unable to meet the ever rising cost of secondary education. Among the past recipients, 9 sat for their KCSE examination in 2013 and registered very good grades, enabling them to get admission in public universities where they are expected to further their education.

Having become part of our community, we always keep in touch with the students as they pursue higher education in order to create a lasting bond and track their progress. We have established partnerships with schools such as Starehe Boys and Starehe Girls Centre where we provide full scholarship to needy students in each of the schools.

We will continue to participate in various annual activities including the Starehe Girls Walk and golf sponsorship aimed at raising funds for the school, Starehe Boys Centre founders day, where we will use the opportunity to share our experience on how to create partnership with the school, whose reputation of transforming lives’ by providing quality education to needy boys in the society spans several decades. We plan to continue with these partnerships in the coming years as we aim to increase the full scholarship category to needy students in order to make valuable contribution in the education sector.

In 2013, we participated in the Nelson Mandela Day held on 18th July 2013 at Kilimani Primary School, a school that caters for disadvantaged children from Kibera slums, some of them who are visually impaired. We contributed in the renovation of an old store room into a modern library by both having our staff undertake the actual painting and donating KES 150,000. We were recognised by Liberty Life Assurance Kenya Ltd as the winner of the overall title of the competition that marked Nelson Mandela Day. We claimed high scores in Innovation, Impact, Passion and alignment to Liberty Strategy.

The activities were part of the rejuvenation of Kilimani Primary school, which caters for more than 1100 students, with 95 % being from low income communities of Kibera. The objective was to turn an old store room into a new and larger library, as the old library was inadequately resourced and too small to accommodate all the children attending the school. The national theme for Liberty CSR 2013 being “Take Action, Inspire Change, Make Every Day a Mandela Day” we ‘took action’ by refurbishing, painting and stocking the store with books giving the kids easy access to knowledge, which in the long term will enhance literacy levels in the community. We ‘Inspired Change’ by involving the community to be part of the makeover activity which ensured ownership of the initiative.

At the end of the day, we promised to ‘make every day a Mandela day’ by committing to monitor and evaluate the long term impact and sustainability through our CSI initiatives that focus on education, and especially for the poor in our society. In line with Liberty CSI theme for 2013 which is “Share your knowledge through education” we aligned to our group strategic and group CSI themes by explaining to the kids and teachers in interesting and fun ways how our business could ensure the education dreams of the children could be achieved.

In line with our objective to keep a close relationship with the students and the schools, we ensured hand delivery of all the school fees cheque, and a discussion with the schools principals. This approach has resulted in an increased interaction thus providing a mentoring opportunity in order to keep our students motivated and focused to achieving excellence in their academic goals.