Provide scholarships for four girls in Sauri, Kenya to complete four years of secondary school.

Why we care: The impact of girls’ secondary and higher education is linked directly to a decrease in child brides, lower fertility rates and healthier children among educated women.

How we’re solving this: The Show Me Campaign, founded by nine-time Grammy award-winning artist and philanthropist John Legend, is working with Connect to Learn to fund four girls’ secondary school scholarships in Sauri, Kenya, a remote rural community near Lake Victoria in Western Kenya.

There are 67 million young people worldwide who remain out of school, with 60% of them being girls. Secondary education equips students with critical thinking skills, enabling civic participation and democratic change.

By covering the tuition and books, room and board, and medical expenses for four years of secondary school, each girl will be able to focus on her academic career, rather than the financial burden of her education. While all of these girls have tested high enough to attend the school, their families cannot afford to cover the cost of the school fees, room and board.

For many girls in Kenya, school fees are simply unaffordable. For example, at just 14 years old, Dolphine Juma faced the bleak prospect of leaving school.  Her family’s small plot of land generates only enough crops to feed the family of seven – not enough to cover her school fees. Thanks to her scholarship, Dolphine can now continue her education, and realize her dream of becoming a professor of environmental studies, an interest she cultivated through gardening and farming.

The hope is that these scholarships will not only change the girls’ lives, but will help to transform the entire community. One scholarship recipient, Elizabeth, explains the value of her scholarship by saying that “when girls are educated, they change the world.”