Friends of Tumaini Trust Kenya

Tumaini Trust Kenya and its mission

Tumaini Trust Kenya was founded in 2014 to offer access to education and training for academically deserving students from disadvantaged economic backgrounds. The fund provides scholarships to the best secondary schools and public universities in Kenya, with the goal of helping students in their academic and professional journey and allowing more of them to access such institutions despite their parents’ or guardians’ inability to pay tuition fees.

The fund was established by Talitha Puri Negri, who began volunteering at Grapesyard School in Korogocho, one of the 36 slums in Nairobi, in 2009. The Korogocho slum, with a population of 180,000 people, is the third-largest slum in the city’s surrounding informal settlements. Since 2015, Talitha has lived permanently in Kenya to personally manage the fund.

In its 9 years of operation, Tumaini Trust Kenya has supported education at the community level, providing over 180 scholarships, tutoring for students, career counseling, facilitating internships for scholarship recipients, and organizing cultural events and environmental awareness activities for the community. The Trust has created a partnership network in Korogocho involving the local administration, schools, and the parents of the students.