Sacrifices are many for young Africans who want to go to school

School was the last thing on Pascal Mwanchoka’s mind when he and his younger brother boarded a bus that would take them hundreds of miles from their mother and her alcohol-fueled rages. Pascal, 13, figured the boys’ schooldays were over for good. “My mother wasn't feeding us; she wasn’t taking us to school,” said Pascal, who came here from the coastal city of Mombasa looking for work but ended up living in the gutters of Nairobi, Kenya. Less than a year later, Pascal and Lenjo, 10, are off the streets and attending a free program in Nairobi for children too poor to afford even a meal of maize and beans. They are among millions of children who struggle against vast obstacles for the luxury of going to school on the poorest continent in the world. Read the story at StarTelegram.com.