Woman's dream for an education comes true despite early marriage

Winfred Vaati at Meru University where she is a final year student pursuing Bachelor of Education, Science. She got married at the age of 15, bore two children and left abusive marriage to pursue education. [Philip Muasya, Standard]

At only 15 years, young but weighed down by family poverty, Winfred Vaati, now a final year university student, eloped with a man to Taita Taveta County, after he promised to educate her.

She had stayed at home for two years after sitting her Kenya Certificate of Primary Examination at Kanyungu primary school in Kibwezi in 2011. She topped in her class by scoring 329 marks out of 500. She was admitted to St Mary’s Girls’ Kinyambu but her mother was unable to pay fees.

Vaati’s world came crushing down. Then a man who worked in the village promised to marry her and take her back to school. She jumped onto the offer without a second thought. “I thought it was a good idea to secure my future, especially after he promised to educate me,” she says. How wrong she was.