By Maggy June | Program Assistant
There is a particular kind of waiting that wears a person down, not the waiting of someone resting, but of someone stranded. For four years after completing secondary school, Talia waited. She washed other people's clothes to contribute to her household. She cared for her younger siblings when her mother travelled to their family's farm to generate income. She watched her peers move forward while her own path remained unclear, not for lack of ability, but for lack of opportunity.
Talia is the second born in a family of six, raised in Rhonda, Nakuru, in a household held together by hard work and sacrifice. Her father, a mechanic, carried the weight of daily expenses while her mother balanced farming and catering work to supplement the family income. With younger siblings still in school and school fee arrears making college inaccessible, Talia's own future was quietly set aside; not abandoned, but deferred. The family prioritized those still in the school system, and Talia, dutiful and uncomplaining, stepped into whatever role was needed at home.
"I kept telling myself something would change. I just didn't know when or how."
A Door Finally Opens
When Talia joined Kijiji Mission's vocational program in October 2024, she arrived carrying the particular heaviness of someone who has waited a long time to be told she matters. What she found was a program designed to do exactly that, not just train hands, but restore the whole person.
Over fifteen months, Talia was immersed in an environment built around her flourishing. In the tailoring and fashion design workshop, she learned the fundamentals of the craft; measuring, cutting, garment construction, finishing, developing the kind of precision that only comes from patient, consistent practice. But the program at Kijiji Mission is never only about the skill at hand.
Health education sessions gave Talia language and knowledge she had never been given access to — covering personal wellbeing, reproductive health, and the kind of practical life health information that equips a young woman to make informed decisions for herself and her future family. Computer literacy classes opened an entirely new world: basic digital skills that are increasingly essential for any young professional navigating today's economy, from communication to record-keeping to finding new opportunities. And in business management and entrepreneurship sessions, she was challenged to think like an owner and to understand income, expenses, customer relations, and the long view of building something sustainable.
"No one had ever taught me how to think about money or how to plan. I didn't even know where to start. Now I do."
Healed from the Inside Out
Yet of all that Kijiji Mission offered Talia, it may be what happened in the quieter spaces that mattered most. For a young woman who had spent years feeling overlooked by circumstance, by a system that had no obvious place for her, and perhaps at times by herself, the program's spiritual and counselling pillars offered something that skills training alone cannot provide: the restoration of self-worth.
Through trauma-informed counselling sessions, Talia was given space to name and process the weight she had been carrying, the years of waiting, the self-doubt, the quiet grief of watching time pass. She began to understand that her story was not a failure, but a context and that what lay ahead was not limited by what lay behind.
It is this inner transformation that her instructors point to when they speak about Talia's journey. She arrived hesitant, prone to second-guessing herself, slow to volunteer or take the lead. Over the months, that changed. A woman who had spent years doubting whether she was capable began, stitch by stitch and prayer by prayer, to believe that she was.
From Graduate to Employed
Talia graduated from the Kijiji Mission program in 2025. Within months, she secured her first formal employment, a position at a workshop producing school uniforms, where she specializes in sewing school ties.
The numbers tell their own story. When she started, she was sewing approximately 250 ties a day, a solid output for a new employee. Today, driven by the discipline and focus she developed at Kijiji Mission, she produces 500 ties daily. Her productivity has doubled. Her employer has noticed. And Talia, for the first time in four years, is earning her own income.
She is candid about where she is: the work is repetitive, the pay is modest, and she is already looking toward the next step; a position that better reflects her full range of skills and training. But she does not say this with defeat. She says it with the clarity of someone who now knows exactly where she is going and is simply moving steadily in that direction.
"I know this is not my final destination. But I am not standing still anymore. And that is everything."
A Reminder of Why This Work Matters
Talia's story is a testament to what becomes possible when a young woman is given not just a skill, but a complete investment in her whole self; her hands, her mind, her health, her faith, and her sense of who she is and what she deserves.
Because of the generous support of donors like you, Talia is no longer the girl doing other people's laundry and wondering if that was all life had for her. She is a trained professional, a woman of faith, and a young entrepreneur in the making, equipped, restored, and only just getting started.
Every story we share like Talia's quiet determination, exists because you chose to invest. Your generosity is not an abstract donation to a programme. It is the counselling session where a young woman finally names what she has been carrying. It is the sewing machine humming in a workshop where someone is discovering, perhaps for the first time, that she is capable. It is the prayer circle where girls who arrived broken are leaving whole.
Springs of Hope Foundation exists at the intersection of skill, faith, and restored dignity, and you make that intersection possible. We invite you to continue walking alongside these young women. There are more Taliases still waiting for a door to open, more stories ready to be written; and your continued investment is what makes the writing possible.
Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts and from theirs.
Links:
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
Support this important cause by creating a personalized fundraising page.
Start a Fundraiser
