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

Leaving

Our bags are packed with the carry-on still open on the bed 'just in case' We leave this afternoon on a flight to Nairobi where we have to renew our resident cards at Immigration (oh joy!) and meet the reps of another NGO for possible programme partnership. We also meet up with our Kenyan 'daughter' who is coming to study in Victoria. She is on the same flight out of Nairobi but has to travel Air Canada from Heathrow. We can at least take her to the gate. Our good friend Nancy who has just left Kenya will meet her in Vancouver to wait for us. The next couple of days will involve some coaching for worst case scenarios!

When in Canada we do a lot of presentations to church groups, Rotary Clubs and schools. We are avaiable in and around the Lower Mainland if anyone is interested in any of our work ( literacy projects in schools, job and business training, scholarships , Virtues in Kenya and clean water)