The time is ripe

The Virtues conference on Integrity scheduled for February is coming at the right time. There is shock as people realize that the results of the secondary school leaving exam (just released) show to what extent cheating was rampant in previous years. Only 141 students in the country scored an overall 'A' as compared to 2685 last year. Fifty percent fewer candidates scored the minimum required for university entry.
 An editorial in today's Daily Nation says: "We must establish and nurture a culture of honesty, integrity and hard work. Children must learn values in their formative years or the nation risks extinguishing a whole generation ..."

Integrity through Virtues: Masinde Muliro University in February. Check www.virtuesinkenya.blogspot. com for details

a new idea. Could you help?

When we visited Emakuche to make the contract for a well, we were all the time surrounded by children. They sprang to help to carry chairs for us into the shade, they listened fascinated as we went through the guidelines with their parents.

One thing we emphasized was that children should be told not to play on the well structure and use it as a climbing frame. Suddenly a light bulb flashed: What a great opportunity to make a simple climbing frame for the little ones next to the well. Playground equipment for children is rarely seen, even in schools, so anything we could build would be unique.
We would like to put up a simple design, probably with metal piping (because termites would eat wood), and it should not cost too much.We would gratefully receive any small donations towards the project

Water projects

We went to visit three communities today that desperately need clean water. The water for one site provided a reasonable stream, enough to fill one jerrycan at a time (Emakuche),one other was just a muddy hole where the carriers patiently scooped out the dirty water (Mungulu), the third was a beautiful site but highly contaminated from run off from cattle, latrines and crops (Emakanya).Many people, especially the very young and elderly, suffer from water-borne diseases.

We signed one contract  with Emakuche to build a well and the people should have their clean water by New Year transforming this:

to this:

It costs about $1000 to make this transformation. We feel that the other two sites must be assisted in the New Year. We are gratefully receiving donations to help us do this.

This is Mungulu

Emakanya

Graduation day

Friday was the annual graduation ceremony at Masinde Muliro university. Fred Omondi received his B Ed. We were honoured to be invited to the private family celebration. Fred  was president of Rotoract, Virtues trained and an instructor at our Math tutoring centre. He has been active in many community projects. As I said in a short speech,Fred epitomizes the Rotary slogan of Service about Self

Brenda was secretary of Rotoract and also a teacher

Fred with fiancee Brenda and his mum

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Virtues training

Virtues training in a private home

we enjoyed the beautiful compound