Impregnated by the boss’s son and then framed for petty theft as a likely effort to get rid of her and her illegitimate child, Beatrice’s spirit all but died when she walked through the iron gates of Embu Prison to serve a three-year sentence.

Kenyan Elizabeth Wangui knows what it was like to work, and work hard. But work alone wasn’t enough. Not until her work ethic was finally coupled with opportunity, did she experience success.

Ann Alugunat is a widow who lives in Teso Village, Kenya. Since 2002 she had lived with an ever-growing tumor on her jaw that had made it increasingly difficult for her to eat—a problem that led to malnutrition. The people in her village—even her own family—had come to accept that Ann would soon die.