KISUMU COUNTY, Kenya — Nineteen-year-old Sharon Akoth remembers the moment her ambition to become a doctor felt possible.
In 2021, she enrolled in the U.S.-funded DREAMS program, an initiative aimed at supporting adolescent girls and young women at high risk of HIV. Orphaned at age 12, Akoth had struggled to stay in school and relied on relatives in Kibos, a small town in Kenya’s Kisumu County, to cover school fees and meals. Frequent inability to pay for required supplies, such as books and uniforms, often forced her out of class. The DREAMS program, she said, changed that.
“It's through the DREAMS program that they gave me a school uniform, shoes, and they provided me with food, which I took home,” Akoth said.