About Us
Friends of Jane Adeny Memorial School for Girls is a not-for-profit charitable organization incorporated in the State of Illinois and exempt from federal income tax under 26 U.S.C. Section 501(c)(3). Our mission is to raise friends and funds for the Jane Adeny Memorial School for Girls (JAMS) in rural western Kenya, especially to provide scholarships to JAMS for impoverished and orphaned girls who would otherwise not progress beyond Standard 8 (8th grade) and to support a financially and environmentally sustainable infrastructure for JAMS. Our vision is to educate girls and transform the world.
In 2015, Friends of JAMS provided 18 full scholarships to JAMS students; in 2021, Friends of JAMS donors provided 93 full scholarships while a partnership with the Weiss Scholarship Foundation provided 23 more. Since 2015, Friends of JAMS has also given the funds to construct a fully equipped science building, upgrade the water system of the school, build the on-campus micro-enterprises (such as the bakery, the poultry operation, and vegetable farming), and buy textbooks, school uniforms, and other needs.
Jane Adeny Memorial School for Girls provides an education “good enough for the richest and open to the poorest.” Some of the students have parents who can pay at least some of their school fees; however, most JAMS students would not progress beyond Standard 8 (8th grade) if not for the support of generous donors. Some of these students are orphans, others desperately poor.
By addressing the financial barriers that would normally keep girls from attending secondary school, JAMS and Friends of JAMS are answering the recommendation by the World Bank and the Global Campaign for Education to address financial issues to allow for greater gender equity in education [1].
Jane Adeny Memorial School also aims to model excellence in education for Kenya and East Africa. While the high school curriculum is set nationally by the Ministry of Education, JAMS enriches the standard curriculum with entrepreneurship and leadership training. Teachers at JAMS use teaching methods shown to promote active, hands-on learning so that the girls learn to take initiative and apply what they are learning to situations they face in their own lives and communities. The school also incorporates themes of tolerance, justice, participatory democracy, sustainability, technology, and global awareness to better prepare the students to be leaders in their country.
[1] Gender inequity and lack of financing for education are identified as two of the major obstacles to access to education worldwide in Global Campaign for Education 2019 – 2022 Strategic Plan https://www.campaignforeducation.org/en/2019/10/10/gce-2019-2022-strategic-plan/.
See also World Bank Girls’ Education Overview https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/girlseducation, Gender Discrimination in Education: The violation of rights of women and girls published by the Global Campaign for Education in 2012 https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/library/gender-discrimination-education-violation-rights-women-and-girls, and “Girls Can’t Wait: Why Girls’ Education Matters and How to Make It Happen Now” published by the Global Campaign for Education in 2005.
Our Logo
The POT is not only a cultural phenomenon in African households for its myriad functions, it is also symbolic of womanhood. Imbued with deep cultural significance and impacts on the lives of women and girls in African society, the pot is a metaphor for hard work and nurturing life.
The stages in the process of making a pot are in themselves parallel to the stages of development into womanhood from childhood. For its beauty, functional values, versatility, and utilitarian roles, the pot was central to the livelihood of traditional African families, just as education is in today’s modern African families. Pots were made with intentional precision and used by women to sustain life in the African traditional family; today books and education are the tools by which young women are empowered to sustain life in the modern African family.
At JAMS, the pot symbolizes the hard work of our mothers that we are building on through education. The pot is our root and education our fruit.
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