News from a secondary school

Earlier this year we put in Eco-San toilets (adapted for equatorial Africa) for the girls in a Secondary school. They are working well and the schools is processing the urea to use on their crops. (Most schools do some farming for instruction and to supplement school lunches.) The school is very proud of the well-maintained toilets and their very green and healthy crops. They no longer purchase urea as fertilizer and might soon start selling the product locally. They process the urine by standing the full drums in the sun for about a week and mixing with water.
This school which is struggling so hard to improve was seriously compromised a few months ago when eight senior girls were found to be pregnant (one by a senior teacher). The teacher has been indicted and his teaching licence revoked. The abuse of girls by teachers is a very real and prevalent problem and one reason why the clergy here have asked me to run a seminar for them to discuss the issue and what communities can do. We have been talking to the school Principal about various awareness strategies both for boys and girls  A girl's career virtually comes to a dead stop when she gives birth, while boys continue happily sometimes avoiding all responsibility.
Situated in a very poor area, the school sees frequent absenteeism from girls who cannot afford to buy sanitary pads. We looked a while ago at the possibility of providing re-usable pads but never really settled on a pilot project. Maybe with the relationship we have with this school, this would be the place to start.

On a happier note, this school is the second to run Read for the Top in their senior (examination) class. We shall hold heats for 66 students on Friday and the finals next Monday.

In Nairobi

Our journey to Nairobi went smoothly and we arrived on Tuesday evening. ByThursday afternoon  the sun had at last appeared and warmed the chilly air. Hard to believe we are near the Equator and not in BC.
Wednesday we went to Immigration to collect our new resident cards that we ordered last March. No sign of them! The fellow put a ‘trace’ request to see what might have happened. The good news is we have our old ones, plus the receipt for the new ones, and someone else can collect them for us at some unspecified future date.
We dropped in at Nakumatt the big supermarket for Rod to buy a cap (he forgot to put one in the luggage!) There we met two young men from Kakamega who, as always, beamed with joy to describe their ‘home’ when they learned we know the area.
Wednesday lunch BBQ at the United Kenya Club offered goat and chicken and many local vegetables. Breakfast gives us large slices of pineapple, papaya and delicious passion fruit.
Our vehicle is here thanks to our network of willing friends and left early Saturday expecting to arrive in the late afternoon. Of course there is something to be fixed, so stopped by our reliable mechanic in Kisumu. Hopefully it will be easy to put right.
As far as the grant goes, we are toiling up the long, slow slope of approval. It looks as if the East Africa District will give the ok but I have to do some work with the local club to ensure they qualify for this kind of grant. (Yes, this could all have been done weeks ago!)
The public school teachers have been on strike for three weeks and are now back at work after receiving a lump sum payment. This means that the very important exam schedule has been thrown out of sync and delay in their administration will mean a delay in opening of school in the new year. This in turn could radically affect our teacher seminar plan which is a major part of the grant proposal.

We never come back to Africa thinking things will be easy! But it is so good to see all the smiling faces and to receive so many welcoming phone calls, that it’s hard to stay frustrated for long.

We leave for Kenya this coming weekend for another six months. Our partnership with Kakamega Rotary Club is shaping well with only a few more steps before the global grant for education becomes a reality. We plan more Read for the Top, job training, Virtues training in schools and communities as well as forming Kenyan teachers as facilitators for child-centred education.

Facebook

Learning how to make a page for Tembo-Kenya on Facebook. At the moment it is called /Education, community development and clean water in rural Kenya. We'd appreciate your 'Like' for it.

Thank you for the fund raiser

We want to thank you all for the wonderful start to the fundraising campaign. We honour your generosity and support. We have already sent out ‘perks’ and added new members from Australia, US and UK and Canada. Please continue to pass the url to those you know who might be interested. We still ahve a way to go! http://www.indiegogo.com/kenyateachers

Fund raiser for teacher training

Greetings on a warm (at last) sunny day in Victoria, Canada. Some of you we have seen recently, for some, we touch base infrequently. Some of you follow our work in Africa, others know little about it. I am taking the liberty of telling you about a fundraiser we want to conduct and hope you will bear with me. We know that some of you have supported us and have done enough, others have other demands close to their hearts. We’re just asking that you take a look and if you can, pass the information on to others.

We are launching a fund raising campaign with Indiegogo to raise money to cover costs for a professional development training for elementary teachers in Kenya next January. The campaign will go live on Sunday and will remain until the end of August. In order to stay on the main page we have to raise some funds in the first two days, so we are hoping friends and family will help us. Donations can be of any amount and can be made on line. Please make a note of the link : www.indiegogo/com/kenyateachers (Under ‘Education’: Teacher seminars for rural Kenya)

We have a video (made by our Tembo colleague Nancy Carson) an eloquent pitch and some ‘perks’ for early donations. Please check it out this weekend or the beginning of next week. And mention it on Facebook, Twitter etc and to your friends.

We are a little nervous about this first launch into this kind of project, so are double checking everything until Sunday.  Thank you so much. 

We are now home in Canada enjoying clean water from the tap, no mosquitos and uninterrupted electricity. 
OUR NEW VIDEO FOR 2011-2012 IS NOW ON YOU TUBE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLE3HoENB2k&feature=youtube_gdata
We are still looking for agents to take on monitoring and organizing for some of our activities. Check out how your skills could be used in a needy part of the world htpp://govoluntouring.com/help-build-skills-western-kenya.

We are also seeking help for maintaining our web site and our social media sites. Updating of the web site would be needed about three times a year.

Our Canadian board is always ready for new members! Contact us if you are interested, or know someone we can approach. We ‘meet’ usually by phone or email and have one AGM at the end of the summer.

Patricia and Rod are willing to talk to groups of any kind about their work. Contact us at kenyatembo@gmail.com or at 250 385 6166

Where to find us:

- Rotary Victoria presentation April 19 at 12.00 at the Union Club

- Rotary fund raising tea April 22

- Christ Church Cathedral: whole month of May-table of information and articles for sale on Sundays.

PLANS: We hope for a Rotary grant to enable us to continue Read for the Top, teacher seminars (training Kenyan facilitators) and Virtues to eliminate the cane. We have gratefully received a substantial new donation for job training. So many young people have no hope of acquiring meaningful skills and paying jobs and Tembo considers this primary need