Church elders told Martha’s father that educating his daughters was a waste because they would eventually marry. He disagreed. He kept his three daughters out of the fields and told them that studying was their work, just as farming and earning their school fees was his.

That commitment was tested when the family lost the two-room brick home they had built after years of farming because they could not produce papers for the land. They relocated to another family plot and began rebuilding. During school breaks, Martha returns home to help her parents sell beans from their small storefront. With MBB donors covering Martha’s university education, her parents can direct their limited profits toward her younger siblings’ school fees.