Dr. Evans Kidero’s wife, Dr. Susan Mboya-Kidero, is the daughter of the late Tom Mboya. Tom Mboya started a project in 1960s to airlift bright students from Kenya to the US to study.
Barack Obama Snr. and Nobel Peace Prize Winner Wangari Maathai are some of the beneficiaries of Mboya’s students’ airlift.
Susan Mboya has continued with her father’s students’ airlift project with her foundation dubbed Zawadi Africa Educational Fund.
Her efforts have been recognized by the University of Massachusetts who decided to reward her with honorary doctorate.
Kidero went berserk after the American university rewarded his wife. Below is what he said and photos he posted:
“Very proud of my wife Dr. Susan Mboya-Kidero, on receiving an honorary doctorate from the University of Massachusetts (UMass) Boston for her tireless work with women and girls.
I am humbled and honored that Dr Susan Mboya Kidero continues to selflessly work with women and girls to ensure their success in and out of Kenya/Africa. Dr. Kidero continues to lead the deployment of the Coca-Cola Africa Foundation (TCCAF) initiatives and the 5by20 initiative, a global effort to economically empower 5 million women by the year 2020. Dr. Mboya has forged public-private partnerships with the IFC, USAID, Plan UK, DFID, Technoserve, MercyCorps, and others to help resource, fund, and provide technical expertise for the 5by20 program, raising over $116 million.
Dr Kidero also founded Zawadi Africa Educational Fund in 2002. To date the program has provided full scholarships to over 360 students at over 65 colleges and universities including but not limited to Yale University, Harvard, MIT, Smith, Duke, McGill University, University of Toronto, University of Cape Town and Kwame Nkrumah University in Ghana to name but a few to pursue higher education overseas and come back to become leaders in Kenya.
Dr Susan Mboya Kidero is indeed changing and shaping the lives of young girls and women not only Kenya but in Africa!”
