Starfish currently sponsors 38 children. Nine are in Form IV (equivalent to senior year in a US high school), nine are in Form III, nine are in Form II, and the remaining eleven are in Form I (equivalent to freshman year).

Each year, a fresh wave of matriculating Form I students enters secondary school, and each January Starfish Africa seeks to add a class of approximately ten students via sponsorships. S.A. will start the process to recruit, select and place students for the 2011 school year in November and December of 2010. Please contact David Omondi if you have knowledge of a student we should sponsor in Kenya.

Our sponsored students are selected from all regions of Kenya and then attend a small number of secondary schools that have partnered with Starfish Africa. The students have varied backgrounds, interests, and aspirations. Despite their many differences, however, there are some common denominators. Our selection process focuses on the following two characteristics when making sponsorship selections: ability and need.

Ability: To be selected as a Starfish, a student must exhibit remarkable talent. Excellence in academics throughout primary school and high performance on the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education examination are required for selection. If a student does well in these two areas, he/she is often a competive candidate for both admission to an elite secondary school and selection as a Starfish.

Need: Additionally, a student must have attained the success described above in the face of tremendous adversity in order to be considered for sponsorship. Most students selected face significant financial hardship - hardship that would otherwise prohibit most of them from attending a top-tier school appropriate for their intellect without sponsorship.

These are not ordinary students - they are Starfish. Read their stories and meet some of Kenya's brightest young stars.