Nick Musyoka lived in one of the worst slums in Africa, the Kibera neighborhood in Nairobi, Kenya. His mother told him that the only way to get out of the slum was to get an education. But to accomplish that, it took some help from a Sedalian who became his “American mom.”
Betty Hopkins spent the past eight years selling African jewelry and trinkets and shipping the proceeds back to Musyoka, who used the money and his own motivation to earn bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in chemistry.
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