A COLLECTION OF WORKS BY
GEORGIA FERNANDES
2025

My Goan heritage a mix of Portuguese and Indian heritage, has been an aspect of my identity that has always forced me to put more pressure on myself to achieve, do, and be more. Like many stories of the past, my grandparents journeyed across continents, but unlike many others, they did not do it in search of a better life but to help more people be able to have that better life.

 

My grandfather was a teacher, journeying from Goa through the Middle East and finally East Africa, and ended up in Kenya. He taught thousands of students through his journey, but most were young men. Having three daughters of his own, he felt the need to do more to educate women in Kenya. So he dedicated the rest of his teaching career to creating and literally hand-building more schools where young women could get the education they deserved, including covering all school fees for talented young girls yet whose families could not raise funds to send them to school.

 

That is why I know how lucky I am that people like himself and many others paved the way for more young women in rural areas of Kenya to get the education they deserved. My grandfather and my grandmother dedicated their lives to the education of young women in Kenya, and so I put more pressure on myself to work just a little bit harder so that in the future, I am able to change lives in the same way.

 

My grandfather and my grandmother are just a few of the people who inspired me most to do more for young women in Kenya. To this day, most of the Kenyan population has not had a higher education university; out of that, it is more women who have typically not gone to high school or college. As a young girl myself, it is heartbreaking to come across stories of young women who sell their bodies in order to come up with funds to pay their fees, as typically families prioritize sending their sons to school.

 

In Kenya, I am honored to work very closely with the Earth Angels Welfare, founded by my family, who continue my grandparents' legacy of wanting to impact the lives of young children in Kenya, specifically girls. In 2017, named after my grandfather, we created the 'Gomes Scholarship' and have funded over one hundred girls to attend high schools and colleges across Kenya with the help of various donors, and we continue to do so.

 

From a young age, I have always heard PJs stories, and I have heard people joking about how he has done so many things and lived through so many adventures that he should write a book, so when I heard that we were, in fact doing a book of all his journeys and adventures it didn't surprise me. In fact, I think I was in awe of the life he had lived. To be able to have gone through enough incredible experiences that you can fill a 200-page book is something that is so inspiring, and I am really excited. I get to say I know the muse and  can get a signed copy at dinner.

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I know this book to him is more than just bound stories, as someone who has got to listen to them and heard them with every voice or tone change with every facial expression and arm movement- I know it is a compilation of adventures and journeys that not just made him who he is, but has made all of us who we are too.