Kipkeino School opened its doors in January 1999, a short walk from the Lewa Children’s Home in Eldoret, in Kenya’s Western Highlands. It was founded by Kipchoge “Kip” Keino a two-time Olympic gold medalist and one of the greatest middle- and long-distance runners the sport has produced, together with his wife, Phyllis Keino.

Kip Keino knew what it meant to have the odds against him. He built this school on a simple conviction: that education and sport, taken seriously, are the surest way out of hardship for a child who has already faced more of it than most.

From day one, that conviction shaped who the school served. Orphaned and vulnerable children from Lewa Children’s Home sat in the same classrooms as students from the wider community, taught to the same standard, held to the same expectations. More than two decades later, that hasn’t changed. What has changed is the scale a small founding class has grown into a full school spanning Early Childhood Development through Junior Secondary, with a KCPE record that ranks among the strongest in the region.