• The foundation of the knowledge in the school started in 2015 is to impart in children is the trust in God.
• Of the 36 candidates that sat for the KCPE, four scored 400 marks and above.
Lucas Kaura Kuria, 14, wants to be a bishop and a lawyer in future so he can save bodies and souls from getting into jail and hell.
He scored 427 marks in the 2019 KCPE topping his class.
“I believe it is only God who enabled us to get those marks. It is neither our strength nor our understanding,” he said on Tuesday.
Kuria sat for his exams at the Manna Good News Academy in the poor Majaoni area of Kisauni constituency.
Hanifa Makena also scored 427 marks.
However, she went to Nyali Primary School in the affluent neighbourhood where she also topped the class.
She has ambitions of becoming a doctor so she can save lives too.
The two children represent the different challenges that different pupils undergo to achieve academic success in Mombasa.
However, Lucas’ is a story of determination in the face of adversity.
Most of the time, the food provided at the school was what kept him going.
“I believe that even as I move to the next level, God is still going to do it for us,” Lucas said.
Pastor Allan Owano, the director of the Manna Good News Academy, said this is the good news that he has been yearning to hear.
“I believe that no human is limited. The children in the less privileged areas and those from the less privileged families have something in them that can be harnessed to greatness,” he said.
Indeed, Owano said the foundation of the knowledge the school imparts in children is the trust in God.
When he was about to found the school, many of his friends thought he was losing it.
It was on a piece of land in the middle of a bushy and swampy area of Majaoni.
There were only a handful of mud and grass-thatched houses where inhabitants survived on a meal a day.
Owano’s idea was to start a feeding centre that will encourage children in the impoverished area to attend school.
“The area was a jungle. I was passing by one day and saw a mother with five children, carrying firewood on her head.
“One child was on her back, one was on her front, three were walking by her side. I asked her how she was doing and she said she hoped her children would one day alleviate her from that penury,” Owano said. He was touched.
“That image stuck with me for a long time. I decided I had to help her in some way. I started thinking how I could use my network to help them,” Owano told the Star.
A pastor friend from the US told him the best way to help a community is through education.
Four years down the line, the idea of a feeding centre metamorphosed into a school that caters for the needy in the society.
Apart from feeding its pupils, the school also provides food for the community.
Its presence has opened up the area and there is more activity and settlement around it as opposed to 2015 when it started.
When Education CS George Magoha released the 2019 KCPE results, Manna Good News Academy had produced the second-best candidate in Mombasa county.
Only Derrick Cheka from Kenya Navy Primary School scored higher marks than Lucas and Hanifa, with 435 marks.
Owano said all the 415 pupils in the school are fully sponsored by The Hope Foundation of Kenya.
All the parents have to do is take their children to school.
They do not have to worry about the fees, school uniform, stationery, or food. All is catered for by the school.
“This year’s KCPE lot are the fourth to have sat for the exams since the school started. Our interest is to see no child in this neighbourhood accompany their parents to fetch firewood during school days,” Owano said.
Of the 36 candidates that sat for the KCPE, four scored 400 marks and above. The school posted a mean score of 315.
The other three are Asha Rama, 14, with 417 marks, John Safari, 14, with 408 marks and Selina Kuria, Lucas’ sister, with 406 marks.
Owano said they get help from different churches in the US to run the institution, which also offers a 100 per cent transition into Vallery Macmillan High School, also run by The Hope Foundation of Kenya.
At the high school, there is also full sponsorship for all the students.
The foundation sponsors those who perform best at the high school level through their university education.
So far, some 1,000 students are under full scholarship from primary to university.
The school’s patron Rashid Bedzimba said even the less fortunate children are usually academically gifted but lack opportunities that other privileged pupils get.
“There is no one who is not bright. That is why some of the best-performing students right from primary through to university are from very poor backgrounds,” Bedzimba said.
He said all that children in the country need is equal opportunities for them to succeed.