“It's one opportunity that I've never taken for granted… It gave me the drive.”

Sheryl Apondi finished secondary school in Migori with no money for university and spent a year at home. People in her village recommended she marry a soldier. When a friend told her about Digital Divide Data, she applied even though she'd never touched a computer. She went to town to practice typing to meet the speed requirement for the interview. "I was desperate,” she said. “I need to be in school.” She got picked in 2014 and went through six months of training. After two years as an associate, she enrolled at Kenyatta University and graduated in 2019 with a second-class upper degree in education.

Her priorities shifted after graduation. Her performance elevated her from associate to team lead to project supervisor. She changed her career path from teaching to project management and enrolled for a master's degree. "It's one opportunity that I've never taken for granted. It gave me the drive," she says. She stays connected with alumni through welfare and networking groups, and she refers people to DDD's BEST training. Her advice to DDD: train people in skills the market needs, like the AWS cloud engineering program that made 80% of that cohort successful in landing outside jobs.