Florida Students Score Essays Submitted by Kenya Counterparts To Elect Scholarship Award Winner

Left to right: Monica Cadagan, Paul Mode and Rolex Saint-Preux, recent graduates of Boca Raton High School participating in the cross-continental, multi-cultural, peer-judged essay competition entitled, "Who Am I"

3 graduates from Boca Raton High School are part of a cross-continental, multi-cultural exchange with peers from a rural village area in western Kenya. Today Monica Cadagan, Rolex Saint-Preux and Paul Mode met with Dream Sponsors board member, Lexy Sanguinetti and their former history teacher, Mr. Darwyn Allen (All-En-One, LLC), for an essay-judging exercise, following the recently concluded essay competition arranged both in Florida and in Kenya.

The Florida graduates read and scored essays written and submitted by selected Kenyan high school students. Most of the essays described traumatic losses from early childhood to current poverty situations and the subsequent issues the youth face daily in Kenya. The Florida students were empathetic but very professional about scoring each essay according to the criteria provided.

Mr. Darwyn Allen of All-En-One sits with his former students to facilitate the judging portion of the essay competition held in collaboration with Dream Sponsors

Being an academic scholarship competition, the Florida students were charged with grading the essays based on originality, creativity, language use, grammar, clarity of message and such other criteria. The group later discussed the views shared by the Kenyan students, the differences as well as the similarities between high school student perspectives in the USA and in Kenya, and later had individual interviews to share their thoughts on what they learned, what they felt and what they wanted to tell others about the experience- all were enlightened and inspired by the information shared and learned from the essays and from each other.

And The Winner Is...

Dream Sponsors committee member and liaison, Meridinah Otuma (standing) officiates the essay writing competition for the participating Kenya students.

Elizabeth Ayiera of Vihiga County emerged the winner out of the Kenyan participants. She scored 15 out of 15 possible points for her essay. Second place was shared by Sylvia Kakenya and Jentrix Risper with 10 points each. Third place was taken by Jahel Ombima with 9 points, 4th place was a tie by Peter Ochieng and Miriam Musieka with 8 points each and 5th place was taken by Lornah Achungo, 7 points. Dream Sponsors committee members in Kenya had gathered the students to write their essays earlier this year, as pictured above.

We now await the results of the Florida essay competition. The Kenya students and Dream Sponsors Kenya-based committee will be conducting the same grading and scoring process on their end to elect a winning essay from the Florida submissions. Stay tuned for more on the winning essays and the feedback shared by the participating students.