St. Francis Moto Hope Center and Academy is founded on the Christian virtues of trust in God, hard work, responsibility, and accountability. We are stewards of our God-given gifts and talents. At the Academy, we aim to exhaustively exploit all of the talents, gifts, and various abilities endowed to us freely by God. Through witness sharing and motivational encounters, we reach out and also listen to inspirational life stories. The encounters with mentors challenge all mentees to be courageous enough to step out of their comfort zones and achieve the highest possible successes while further nurturing their inborn talents.

The mentees are always in a privileged position to borrow from the success stories of their mentors. We are very enthusiastic about mentorship for we believe in its unstoppable power to unlock our young ones' potential. Apart from the monthly mentorship day for the students, we also have a 3-4 days mentorship camp at the center three times a year in which all our alumni currently in High school join their counterparts in the Academy. We engage the services of professionals; coaches, mentors, and counselors to talk to both our students and teachers.

The main objectives of this program

• To know better the needs of our students and help them to remain optimistic in their self-awareness and knowledge search.
• To motivate and challenge them to realize their hidden potential and better their gifts and talents.
• To inculcate Christian virtues, the spirit of community service, and the readiness to embrace individual responsibility.

1. Spiritual Formation, Guidance, and Counselling

We have a very vibrant department covering spiritual formation and counselling for our learners. We celebrate weekly Holy Mass and on every other special day at the Academy. Additionally, learners also attend Catechism classes as well as Pastoral Program Instruction (PPI) - a school-based and coordinated intervention to help individual learners improve their social, emotional, and behavioral skills.

The Spiritual Formation, Guidance, and Counseling Department together with our mentorship department ensure the psychological, mental, and emotional well-being of everyone at the center. Every Wednesday from 1:30 pm to 2: 00 pm, we conduct a general guidance lesson for all students. Should students have any issues they need to deal with at any point in their time in the school, they are free to see any of the guidance teachers or counsellors. Our mentorship sessions also work with this department by having visiting counsellors every month. Moreover, the SFGC department also works together with the boarding department to ensure all the boarding students are comfortable in school both at night and on weekends.

2. “Once upon a time…” Public Speaking Competitions:
At St. Francis Moto Hope Center and Academy, we believe that reading is essential for a child’s success. We have an adequately stocked ultramodern library that is bursting with exciting books for learning and entertainment. Our children enjoy their library/maktaba lessons and their own leisure reading. “Once upon a time…” is a monthly event that is chaperoned by Verarita Wananyanga the communications officer at Moto Hope Mission and the Academy's Resident Mentor. Students are tasked with reading at least two story books every week at the end of which they gather under a tree with Verarita to story tell and discuss the various titles they read in the month at Public Speaking Competitions.

Every speaker is awarded and the best five win the ultimate prize; books that are not available at the Academy Library. The objective of this prompt is to inculcate, develop, nurture and grow a reading culture in our children. They are able to develop their language skills, boost their imagination and creativity as well as expose themselves to new things. In the silence of reading in the library, they challenge and feed their brains with knowledge and experiences from the various reading materials. The storytelling sessions sharpen their communication and public speaking skills as well as self-confidence.

3. Short Story Hours:

Short Story Hours is part of our mentorship program that seeks to explore and grow the creativity of our young learners through writing. The students have regular sessions with running themes that guide the discussions and writing activities of the day. They hold very engaging discussions with the resident mentor and each participant writes their own short story at the end. These sessions go a long way in enhancing their composition/Insha writing as well as Language skills and self-expression!

4. Read with Us:

"Read with us" Mentorship sessions are held in the Library outside the normal school routine for the learners to read widely on their own, supervised by the resident mentor. They are encouraged to read books outside the syllabus to gain exposure, and knowledge and entertain themselves to relax while growing and nurturing their reading culture. This goes hand in hand with the "Once Upon a time..." sessions.