Kenya Kids Can!

Our founders, Steve and Nancy Peifer, work at Rift Valley Academy.  Since 1906, Rift Valley Academy has educated the children of missionaries in East Africa. Rated as one of the top schools in Africa, RVA is an American curriculum, K-12 boarding school in Kijabe, Kenya.

From its perch on the eastern escarpment of the Great Rift Valley, it educates children from over 30 different passport countries. With a total enrollment of 500 (350 of which comprise the high school) it offers most of what an average American high school offers. Besides the core subjects it offers a band and choir program; sports including soccer (football over here), field hockey, basketball, tennis and rugby; drama; a language department which offers French, Spanish and Kiswahili; industrial arts; fine arts and more. Each year between 10 and 12 AP’s are offered.

About 93% of the students go on to colleges and universities all over the world. Every graduation, students leave to shake their world–studying at schools including: Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Penn, the Air Force and Naval Academies and many other fine institutions.

Students growing up in Africa have a very different world view from most of their peers in America. They understand the realities of poverty because they see people living in poverty every day; they search the sky for rain clouds during seasons of drought and understand that water is a blessing, not a right; they discuss politics with students living in countries where freedom doesn’t look the same as it does in America; they live side-by-side with students from about 30 different countries; they generally speak 2 or 3 languages fluently; and they eat more chapattis and mandazi than pizza and ice cream. Diversity is not a buzzword here, it’s our life!