“Watipa has raised my hopes of achieving my goal to support my community to access quality education, clean water and food through the scholarship and believing my objectives can be achieved”.

Amos is studying to become a great civil engineer so he can support his community to access “quality education, clean water and food.” You can watch a short film Amos made for the Watipa film competition on YouTube.

For three months in Amos’ third year of a five year BSC in Civil Engineering the lecturers at his Mombasa university were on strike. Despite this Amos has had a very successful academic year. Since achieving the Watipa scholarship his “number of quality grades has increased tremendously” and Amos has enjoyed going on his first industrial placements. He says the eight weeks spend attached to the Kenya Ports Authority was a “wonderful experience,” “invaluable” to his career development.

Amos has also become a Watipa scholar representative on the Watipa Board of Trustees alongside a fellow scholar, Prerana, from Nepal. For Amos, this experience has increased his ambition to “speak on behalf of people”, reinforcing his original aim to support his community by “promoting quality education” and using his engineering skills to support his community to obtain better food and clean water.

Though only in the first year of his scholarship, Amos is already working hard to promote Watipa and our aims in his community – he has visited local schools to give “motivational talks” on educational choices and supported fellow students in need of assistance to apply to our scholarship programme.

In the coming year, Amos and some fellow students are planning more extensive education outreach work, giving more talks and organising events in local schools.

Though he is most proud of having obtained the scholarship, Amos has also been inspired by the opportunity to meet other scholars from across the world through Watipa’s programme and experience he describes as “wonderful”.

Isaac Barry