Kenyan teen living in America flies high, accepted in the Rutgers Future Scholars Program

Faith Angel Menya, a 13-year-old resident of New Jersey, is now a participant of the lucrative Rutgers Future Scholars University Program where she has taken up leadership roles and emerged top as an honors student with stellar performances.

Faith, whose father is a veteran of the USA Army, and whose military experience has seen him deployed in various battlegrounds, from Afghanistan and Kuwait, is also set to complete her 8th grade and later join high school in September after the US summer break.

Every year Rutgers University selects a group of 200 first-generation students with outstanding academic determination to take part in a program that ultimately helps them become the first in their family to attend college.

Launched in 2017, the Rutgers Future Scholars Program (RFS) has seen over 2,000 students graduate.

Majorly drawn from New Brunswick, Piscataway, Newark, Camden and Rahway and more US locations, these students gain access to summer courses, team-building seminars, academic tutoring, mentoring and other unique opportunities that foster their academic, social and personal growth for post-graduation success.

Faith, whose mother is a medical practitioner in the emergency department, and who also was on the frontline during the Covid-19 pandemic, also won a good citizenship award for her admirable work in fostering good relations, preaching responsibility and inculcating the essence of honor amongst young adults.

"After seeing what my mother did to thousands of patients during the pandemic, I now aspire to be a doctor because I feel like there's no greater calling," she says.

The brainy teen, who also says she loves STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) classes, has also maintained her Kenyan heritage and has visited the country severally to be in touch with her Kenyan roots and to also visit her kin in Nyanza, Kenya.

Bouyed by her Uncle Stephen Aoll, and auntie Jackie Aoll, themselves notable business gurus in America, and some of the most renowned figures in the IT sector across America, Faith says her greatest aim is to better her people and bring the pride home.

"There are a million ways to get lost in the American teenage labyrinth. I'm glad to have been brought up around a grounded family, around a grandfather and grandmother who are strong leaders of the Church in New Jersey and around an extended family which has branched out and found great success too, "she said.

The budding athlete, whose forays in the world of swimming, basketball and cheerleading has won her accolades, also says that she cannot wait to tour Kenya soon and, once again, bask in the warmth of the motherland.