The founder of Puan Primary, Dickson, is a native Maasai resident who
was fortunate enough to attend primary school in a neighboring village back in the 1990’s. He was sent away by his family and stayed with a family friend. However, during those formative years, he was treated differently and unfairly compared to those students living in the local village and was mostly viewed as an outsider.
Now, Dickson is 38 and has 6 children of his own. Up until 2018, there was not a local school for Dickson’s children or the children of the surrounding village to attend. Dickson felt motivated to start his own school so the local children from the village could have a different experience than the one he had back in the 90’s. He wanted children to be able to walk to a close by school and return home to their mother’s house in the evenings (at the very least through primary school, as many children who pursue secondary school must be sent off to join a boarding school).
Educating Girls
Additionally, as a father to daughters, Dickson also believed having a local school for the young girls of the community would help tremendously. Teenage pregnancy is very high in the area as a result of girls starting school late (because they are too young to walk long distances on their own). The young girls that do end up going to school will start around 9 years of age, so they will be a teenager before they finish primary school. The result, unfortunately, is them often believing they are much more mature than they are and with the lack of contraception and sex education these young girls are getting pregnant at the age of 12-14, which ultimately ends their educational life. Since starting his school, Dickson has enrolled children as young as 3.5 years old. By the time many of these young girls have hit puberty, they’ve come close or are finishing primary school already, helping to avoid pregnancy at such a young age.
