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!
rugby should be capitilized.
hey, you didn’t mention john brown! ….
By: Joel Veenstra on November 30, 2007
at 4:39 am
Nice Website Steve. I can’t believe your are going to be on CNN. I can’t wait to see it.
By: Margaret Mallory on November 30, 2007
at 5:30 am
Hi Steve,
We’ve been with u for a long time now. Keep up the good works and the humor.
By: Tom & Barbara Walton on February 8, 2009
at 9:59 pm
HI MR. STEVE! i have witnessed your good work that u r doing thro. the pple u’ve employed. keep the fire blazing. B bles
By: Abel ngugi on April 27, 2009
at 7:29 am
I am amazed at what you are doing, but your claims that RVA is diverse that laughable, it was established by a missionary on a colonialist mindset and you are proud of that, and the thought about diversity what a bunch of croc…
You are doing a good thing but at the same time laughable, you should do more as most of the parents can afford, i played against the school and most of the kids were the sons and daughters of some of the most powerful and most privileged people period, please do not overstate your goodness.
By: peter on October 11, 2010
at 8:41 am
Hallo steve,your feeding programe is a noble idea ,but i have reservations about the way the food distribution is done to schools in the progamme.The amount varies greatly from term to term.Sometimes it is too little and can not feed the students for a month.
By: samuel on October 18, 2010
at 1:34 am
It’s Okay Peter. There are kids dying of hunger. It’s Okay, it RVA was created on colonist mindset in 1906, but things would be different now, even if they are not, I would rather save those children, wound’t you peter?
By: Shital on August 10, 2011
at 11:30 pm