Diana Onyango lost her father in 2002 while still a young girl at her Kanyawegi village in Kisumu County.
Two years later, her mother also passed on, leaving her in the care of her grandparents.
Being the only child in the family, the grandparents invested all their hopes in her, and pledged to sacrifice to see her achieve her dreams in life.
Her confidence in life, and the understanding that she had no one to call mum changed her view of life, forcing her to be on top of her life.
On March 3, she sat quietly to reap what she had sawn at Kisumu Girls High School, and immediately after the release of the 2015 KCSE results by Education Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i, she sent her index number to the short code given for receiving the results.
“The moment I received the results, I made a short prayer and thanked God before forwarding the results to my grandfather who was happy,” said Onyango.
She got an A plain of 83 points, emerging the best student in the school. The first of such a grade in the history of Kanyawegi clan.
“I had targeted to get 84 points but what I got was equally good. I just wished my parents were alive to help me celebrate the result. I am now closer to my dream of becoming a civil engineer which has been my dream since I was young,” she said.
Onyango was among the over 500,000 candidates who sat the examination in which 5,000 cheating cases were reported.