SOTENI is "my mother and my father," says AIDS orphan Brian Omolo from SVH-Ugenya.  At age 25, Brian readily admits he owes his life and future to SOTENI and its Sponsorship Program.  

By the time Brian finished primary school around 2000, his father was dead from AIDS, and his mother and younger brother were seriously ill with the disease. Brian desperately wanted to continue his education, but his family was too poor to afford the tuition and fees. Brian went to work doing carpentry on a piece-work basis.  This earned barely enough to feed the family. Life was hard.  Boys his age looked down on him because he was too poor to go to school. Yet, Brian held out hope.  He promised his mother that "one day I will go to school and become the light of our home."  

By 2004, Brian's mother and brother had succumbed to AIDS.  He was a total orphan. Yet despite his grief, he held on to his dream.  He heard about and applied for admission to SOTENI's Sponsorship Program and in 2005 was accepted.  At the age of 19, he went back to Sikalame primary school to repeat class 8 so that he could do well on his KCPE exams.  (In Kenya, the exam results determine the quality of boarding schools that will accept a student.) He did well.  

With much appreciation Brian relates, "During secondary school, SOTENI and my sponsor took full responsibility of my life.  For four years, they provided me with tuition, school necessities, medical care, food and clothing. Just as a parent brings changes in a child's life, SOTENI did this for me!" He graduated in 2009. Today, Brian is enrolled in the Kenya Institute of Mass Communications in Nairobi where he is pursuing a diploma in Film Production. He plans to be a video journalist. SOTENI and his sponsor have no doubt he will succeed.

Brian says, "I love and trust SOTENI as if they were my real parents! I ask God to bless them and their Sponsorship Program."