The Village Gave First

Before the Rotich Foundation awarded a scholarship, a scholarship had already changed my life.

The scholarship to Tulane did not make me believe in myself. I had always carried that belief. It showed me what could happen when I kept putting one foot in front of the other. Keep moving, embrace failure, and opportunities may appear that you could not have mapped from the starting line.

America also dismantled some myths I had been sold. I had imagined Americans, especially white Americans, as naturally more capable or intelligent. Then I watched classmates struggle with the same subjects I was learning, sometimes even English. They were not inherently better than the people I had left behind. If I could compete in athletics while studying engineering, I had both the capability and capacity to do difficult things.

My mind turned back to childhood. I remembered people who may have been smarter than me but whose lives never placed a similar opening in front of them. I understood how much of my road had required effort, but also timing, connection, and luck. The lesson was not to wait for rescue. It was to move when a door appeared, look for one when it did not, and, when possible, help make more doors visible.

That responsibility felt immediate, but it took me years to learn how to carry it well.

For nearly twenty years, I helped relatives and paid school fees for students around the village. Harambee fundraising, the practice of pulling together for a shared need, was part of the culture that raised me. Helping felt natural, even when I did it at my own expense.

Over time, I had to admit that the help was often unfocused. My generosity was sometimes taken advantage of, and assistance without expectations could create resentment, dependency, entitlement, and broken relationships on both sides. I came to a difficult conclusion: charity without accountability can be toxic.

That does not mean people should be left alone with every burden. It means support should not take away the agency, challenge, and growth that belong to the person receiving it. The best help becomes a collaboration. Expectations are clear, effort matters, and responsibility is shared.

I needed boundaries. I needed focus. I needed an institution that could replace improvised generosity with a disciplined, long-term commitment.

My father's dementia gave that commitment urgency. He was a reserved man, but his belief in education was visible through what he did. He helped establish Simteret, the local primary school, and served as its founding chairperson for years so children from our village could learn closer to home. It was the same school I attended barefoot. He also educated my sisters at a time when educating girls was not treated as an obvious priority.

As his dementia advanced, I decided to formalize the scholarship fund in his honor. I had always known I wanted to give back to the ground that raised me. His fading memory clarified that gratitude should not remain an intention indefinitely.

Naming the Foundation required its own negotiation. Kalenjin families do not always carry inherited surnames in the Western sense. My own surname comes in part from my father's middle name. Putting it on a foundation initially felt a little Trump-ish to me, particularly given my discomfort with calling attention to myself.

But my children, growing up in the West, carry Rotich as their family name. I wanted to leave them and the generations after them more than an inheritance to consume. I wanted to leave a responsibility they could continue.

The first scholarship awards were surreal. Parents and students cried because they could not believe a stranger would make a four-year commitment to their education. I insisted that the parents thank the students. The students had earned the opportunity through merit. Their discipline had brought help to the family, not the other way around.

That distinction matters. In Kenya, as in many places, a door can open because someone knows your family or recognizes your tribe. A transparent, merit-based scholarship makes a different promise. Effort, potential, discipline, growth, and character should be seen fairly. That position is not always easy. It can draw skeptical looks from relatives and people nearby who expect charity to follow relationship or tribe. But it is still a principle worth defending.

Merit does not require us to ignore circumstance. Brilliant students can be hidden by instability at home or by community structures beyond their control. Some students at our partner schools go home for lunch and return without having eaten because food is unavailable or life at home has intervened. Around examinations, the Foundation supports lunch programs because hunger should not be the test sitting beside them.

Tuition remains the largest part of the scholarship we offer, but tuition alone is not enough. We provide school supplies and other essentials. We bring scholars together for seminars, mentorship, and academic guidance. As the Foundation grows, I want physical health, mental wellness, confidence, and stability to become stronger parts of the support around them.

The commitment lasts four years because help should be reliable. Paying for one year only to leave a student unable to attend the second or third is not an investment in a future. Long-term work is our way.

As I write this, the first cohort is in its third year. I visit with them during RF Scholars seminars and see young people growing inside an opportunity that once felt impossible to their families. The relationship is not meant to end at graduation. We ask scholars to return to their former primary schools and volunteer so they can understand now, not someday, that they already have something to contribute.

That is the flywheel I hope to create. Confidence becomes action. A student who was supported learns to support someone else. Former scholars return as mentors, professionals, and community members who can look back toward their own roots without believing they must first become wealthy or powerful to make a difference.

Our school-wide work extends the same idea beyond individual scholars. Lunch programs, wellness initiatives, and talks give more students a reason to keep working because they can see that effort may meet a real opportunity. We have seen test scores improve across the four schools where we work, although I do not pretend the Foundation deserves all the credit. Teachers, board members, parents, and students carry the daily work.

The Enhancesoft team carries part of it too. Jane serves on the Foundation board as an Enhancesoft representative. Team members join the scholarship awards and seminars, sharing their own paths with students and helping them see technology and professional work as something people like them can shape. The Foundation bears my name, but its work is not mine alone.

Returning home does not make me the expert on every need. Communities have taught me that the problems are larger than any one institution and that some are structural, layered, and far beyond my present reach. I have had to learn to focus on what we can do now, do it well, and remain close enough to listen when our assumptions are wrong.

I do not want RF Scholars to carry a debt of gratitude toward me or the Foundation. I want them to gain confidence in themselves. Support should lessen a burden without taking away the challenge, agency, or growth that belongs to them. I hope they look back, recognize what became possible, and decide to turn toward someone coming behind them.

Twenty years from now, success will not be measured only by the size of the Foundation. I hope RF Scholars are working across many fields, returning to their roots in their own ways, and helping others move forward. I hope the institution continues beyond me, which is part of why I work so hard now to build resources for its future.

“Giving back” is a useful phrase, but it can tell the story in the wrong direction. It can make generosity appear to begin with the person who left, succeeded, and returned carrying something the community did not have.

That is not how I understand my roots.

My father gave first. My family gave first. The village gave first. A scholarship gave me a road I could not yet see.

I am not giving to roots that were empty.

I am paying back and carrying forward what they gave me, in a form someone else may one day carry beyond me.