12 New Kenyan Scholar-Athletes Commence 2007 School Year

October 9, 2007 (Nairobi) - Twelve students from the Kenya Scholar-Athlete Project (KenSAP),
newly arrived in the United States, report that all is well as they begin their four-year
undergraduate careers at twelve different American universities. The students are the third
contingent from KenSAP to enroll in US universities. Established in 2004 by a Kenyan, Mike
Boit, and an American, John Manners, KenSAP has so far placed 29 high school graduates from
an underserved region of Kenya at 19 elite colleges in the United States, all on full academic
scholarships.* For the past two years, with the help of Canadian entrepreneur and philanthropist
Charles Field-Marsham and his Kenyan wife Rita Field-Marsham, KenSAP students have been
fully supported throughout the lengthy process of exam preparation and application writing that
is necessary to gain admission to highly selective American universities.

This year's KenSAP students began their first semester in September at the following
institutions:

- Emmanuel Bett, from Kapsabet-Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts

- Abel Boreto, from Kabiyet-Harvard University, Cambridge Massachusetts.
- Catherine Kemboi, from Kipkabus-Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont.
- Jackline Koech, from Olenguruone-Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts.
- Evans Kosgei, from Kapsowar-Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
- Eric Kuto, from Iten-Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey.
- Clarah Lelei, from Baraton-Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr Pennsylvania.
- Victor Mutai, from Bomet-Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.
- Lydia Rono, from Lessos-Hamilton College, Clinton, New York.
- James Rotich, from Nakuru-MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
- Timothy Sirkoi, from Kapsokwony-Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire.
- Susan Yebei, from Nakuru-Gettysburg College, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

KenSAP selects about a dozen candidates each year based primarily on their performance on
Kenya's national high school final exam, the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE).
During selection, considerable weight is attached to the students' family background. A large
majority of KenSAP students come from peasant farming families; several are the first in their
families to attend high school; nearly all belong to the first generation to go to university. While
preparing for the US college entrance examinations, students are encouraged to participate in
regular athletic training in the hope that some will reach a standard that will make them of
interest to American college coaches. To date, nearly half of KenSAP's students have had the
support of coaches during the admission process, and several have become valuable runners for
their universities.
"We are so pleased to be involved in this Project," says Charles Field-Marsham "My wife, Rita,
is from Kenya and I have operated businesses in Kenya for more than ten years. We want to give
back to the communities we operate in, and most importantly we want to help and encourage
Kenyan students to achieve their ultimate education dreams."

Kenya is a country of 34 million with a literacy rate of 85 per cent - among the highest in Africa.
Education is compulsory and free for pupils in primary school; about half the appropriate age
cohort is enrolled in high school, which costs upwards of $200 a year per child (per capita GDP
is $1,100).

* KenSAP has helped place 29 students at the following institutions: Harvard (five), Yale (two),
Princeton (two), MIT (two), Amherst (two), Hamilton (two), Mount Holyoke (two), Dartmouth,
Williams, Wesleyan, Middlebury, Wellesley, Bryn Mawr, Smith, Brandeis, Carleton, Lehigh, St.
Lawrence and Gettysburg. All have been granted full financial aid.