Tiaty is a remote sub-county in Baringo, Kenya — one of So They Can’s partner communities.

In Tiaty, a child is born into struggle. For girls and boys in the same village, the pain is different, but the weight is the same.

For a girl in Tiaty, her childhood is stolen quietly, and her future is decided by community traditions and norms.

She is born, and immediately her education is not a priority. While she is still small, she is taught to carry — to carry water for kilometres a day in the hot sun, to carry her younger siblings on her back, to carry firewood, and the list goes on.

Before she even finishes primary school, she is told she must undergo Female Genital Cutting (FGC) to become a woman. Soon after, she is married off — not because her parents hate her, but because poverty forces them. A girl becomes a source of wealth: sold for cows, goats and money.

So, a girl who dreamed of becoming a teacher ends up as a young wife in a polygamous home. She never learns to write her own name. She goes from taking care of her parents’ animals to taking care of a husband’s home. Her dream dies quietly.

When we ask our girls, “What was stopping you from going to school?” — they say: “No one to pay my fees. I was needed at home. I was told girls don’t need school.”

For a boy in Tiaty, his childhood is stolen in the bush.

A boy in Tiaty is told to be a man too early. At the age of 8 or 9, he is pulled out of school to herd cattle. He disappears into the forest for weeks, sometimes months — walking barefoot, hungry, sleeping in the cold, protecting his father’s cows, at risk of dying from the harsh weather and long dry seasons.

He is taught that school is for the weak, that to be a real Pokot man, you must have cows, carry a gun and go for raids. He may never enrol at school at all, or he drops out in Class 5 or Class 6.

He grows up without knowing how to read or write. He cannot get a job. He has no choice but to follow the same cycle — herding, raiding, fighting and insecurity. Many lose their lives to cattle rustling and disease. Many turn to alcohol out of hopelessness and trauma.

When we ask our boys, ‘What was stopping you from going to school?‘ — they say: ‘My father told me to take care of the cows. There was no food at home. School was too far.‘

Same Village. Different Pain. Same Root.

Both boys and girls in Tiaty want the same thing: to go to school. But poverty, culture, distance to school, hunger, and lack of awareness kill their dream.

Girls are denied education because they are girls. Boys are denied education because they are needed to become men.

And that is why at So They Can, we support every child — regardless of their gender.

When a girl is supported through school, you are saving her from Female Genital Cutting and early marriage, giving her a brighter future. When a boy is supported through school, you are saving him from the bush, from guns, from a life of raiding, and teaching him what it means to be an educated man.

This is Tiaty. This is why your support matters. Because when you educate one child from Tiaty, you don’t just change a life — you break a cycle. Support a student today — click here.

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Written by Moureen — So They Can Msomi Scholarship Alumni and Ambassadors of Hope Champion