Kisimenyi School Project

What is it and What we are doing about it?

An extensive project to rebuild a dilapidated primary school in rural Kenya for the benefit of over 550 children - to be implemented alongside the village community by a small UK charity dedicated to developing a small handful of primary schools - and to include the construction of large furnished classrooms, a dedicated nursery school, a fully-stocked library as well as the installation of modern sanitation facilities and rainwater harvesting capabilities…

Here, around 550 exuberant and ambitious children aged from 3-16 learn in shockingly desperate conditions. The tiny mud-walled classrooms - each crammed with well over sixty pupils - are in woeful states of disrepair. With collapsing tin roofs, crumbling floors so pot-holed they have disappeared altogether, and rusted wire mesh windows they are dingy, dangerous and depressing environments, wholly un-conducive to enjoyable and productive learning.

Startlingly, there are only a couple of pit latrine toilets at this enormous school. Yet even these are on the verge of collapse - to such an extent that children, in the words of their headmaster, are forced to “help themselves in the nearby bush” instead. The nearest source of water is nearly 10km away.

With these fundamentals in such poor condition, it goes without saying that facilities at the school are extremely threadbare. Reading books and educational resources really are the thing of dreams.

Passing by this school during a recent trip to Kenya our founder was asked by a child: “When are you coming to our school?”

We have answered the plea of that boy, the school and the wider village community with a promise to help them rebuild their school. Together we have put together a plan to rebuild an entirely new school, to include the construction of twelve fully-furnished classrooms, a dedicated nursery school, a fully-stocked library, offices and a staffroom, rainwater harvesting capabilities, an energy-efficient kitchen and modern sanitation facilities.

What impact is this project having?

This project is having a tangible, immediate and lasting benefit for the hundreds of children at the school now as well as for hundreds more in the future. 

• the new classrooms are vibrant and spacious learning environments far more conducive to productive learning;
• the library allows for dedicated reading lessons to take place and represent the first step in the establishment of an active reading culture – so crucial to the raising of literacy levels;
• the dedicated nursery school provides a stimulating environment for the schools’ very youngest children to have fun whilst developing essential life and learning skills;
• the toilets and hand-wash areas provide safe and hygienic sanitation facilities and afford greater privacy, a particularly important issue for girls;
• the guttering and storage tanks provide previously unavailable capacity for storing rainwater which can be used for drinking, cooking and cleaning, as well as irrigation, and takes us a step closer to our aim of ensuring there is no day where water is unavailable in the school;
• the kitchen reduces the schools’ consumption of locally harvested firewood by up to 75 per cent;
• the kitchen garden allows the school to grow its own greens and vegetables to add nutrition to school lunches which, for many children, is the only meal of the day

 

Please help us to make this a reality!

Call us on +1 443 540 1740, Email us at

info@kids4kenya.org or Donate here  

Or write us a check:

Kids4Kenya, Inc. 13 McKim Avenue,

Baltimore, MD 21212