Homeless refugee to college grad: How scholarship changes lives
KALAMAZOO, Mich. (WOOD) — In Kalamazoo Friday, there is an event that is all about breaking barriers for Michigan youth who have grown up in the foster care system.
It’s the Fostering Futures Scholarship dinner. It’s not only raising money to help support the dream of college, but also writing the story for so many who would otherwise go untold, like an immigrant refugee from Kenya.
“Getting ready to graduate, I can now testify that there is something known as an American dream,” Kimaya Bak said.
If Bak’s life were a book, it would not be until this chapter — months from graduation — that we realized it’s not a tragedy.
“You are the author of your life,” Bak said.
It’s a story of triumph.
“I’ve always believed that I was born to make change happen and to give back to the same community in the same country that gave me the opportunities that I have today,” Bak said.
Her early pages are inked with tragedy. At 8 years old, she lost her mother. By 10, she and her four siblings were homeless after her dad died.
“The only thing I came here with was just my suitcase and my four siblings. We mainly came here as unaccompanied refugee minors. We were right away placed into Bethany Christian Services,” Bak said.
After a few unsuccessful foster homes, the siblings were on the verge of being split. Then, a willing heart took them all in.
“We have been living with her the last eight years to nine years. My youngest sister when we first moved here, she was only in fourth grade. Now she’s a senior graduating from high school. And it’s just hard to believe how one it took for one person just to turn the lives of five young children around,” Bak said.
One person and the support of groups like the Fostering Futures scholarship — a $3,000 annual scholarship that requires recipients to have grown up in foster care and attend a Michigan university.
“What we found is nationwide, of the 10% that might end up going to college less than 3% graduate because they didn’t have that support system. In Michigan, we’re very fortunate to have 17 campus coach programs throughout the state. They connect with the youth on campus. They make sure that they have been assigned a campus coach, who becomes their 24/7 mentor and helps them navigate through some very difficult times,” Robin Lott with the Michigan Education Trust, which facilitates the scholarship, said.
Bak is a senior at Western Michigan now. She said WMU’s Seita Scholar program and the Fostering Futures Fund have made a once unimaginable dream her next chapter.
“That happens to be one of the main reasons I have made it this far through college, mainly because they have helped me with navigating. And going through college is never meant to be a journey that you have to take alone. You need a family, you need a community, you need people that will be able to help you walk through it,” Bak said.
Bak is one of more than 470 active fostering futures scholarship recipients. This Friday, the fund will hold its annual dinner at the Radisson Plaza in Kalamazoo.
“When you hear the stories, and then you see some of the successes that are coming out of fostering, you would be amazed and you would open up your wallet and do the same thing. They really have a special place in my heart,” Bak said.
Bak will graduate with a major in global and international studies with a minor in nonprofit management. She hopes to help young people like her around the world. She has already started her own nonprofit, the Halnur Foundation, which aims to help impoverished young girls and those in early childhood marriages. It’s named after the protagonist from page one.
“My mom was mainly a woman who did really value education so much. And she happens to be the main reason why I’m the woman that I am today, mainly because she had always pushed me for better ever since I was young. She had always pushed me to stay focused on my education,” Bak said.
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