February  2009            

We returned  on 18^th from another very busy trip to Nyandiwa and thought a report might be a good idea to let you know how your money has been/is being used to help transform this community and several others.

Water filter workshops.

The original workshop at Nyandiwa continues to make and sell bio-sand filters on a fairly regular basis with 15 or so being donated this year to families in our community who would never be able to afford the cost but whose need is just as dire. Joseph, the manager, employs two local boys in the workshop and he uses his time to train people in new workshops further afield. There are established projects at Awasi, Simbi, Chabera, Rabuor, (although Rabuor is not too successful as even dirty water is in short supply) and now in the Transmara among the Maasai. This latest one is partially funded by Tearfund. Steve visited last week and there was a great deal of local interest including from a World Vision station. Two more workshops are in prospect at Kakamega and Maseno some miles north of Kisumu. The polluted water when filtered is pure, cold, has no nasty taste and is a real life-saver!

Education

Kolweny Kingsway Primary School has a new headteacher, Joshua, and we hope it will flourish under his leadership. It still functions on fewer teachers than there are classes. The three classrooms we originally built from 2001 are in good use, as is the one built last year. The government has paid for two more rooms – two to go and the original ‘stable block’ can be demolished to reveal the new layout behind. This time we took out letters from Fiddlers Lane Primary School in Salford who would like to set up a correspondence between the pupils so that they can gain knowledge about each other.

Kolweny Kingsway High School is becoming a victim of its success! It was founded in 2004 and at the end of its first 4 years 8 students passed with high enough grades for university or college. This is previously unheard of! Hope Beyond Form 4 is our scholarship scheme which at present is funding six students (2 had results high enough for a government grant) and will hopefully provide scholarships for students in successive years. Dependent upon income these may have to be rationed to a certain number per year. We await the final exam results from last year’s Form 4 which will be published at the end of February. (The academic year runs as a calendar year.) Very few of our students would even have gone to High School were our school not there so they and the staff all send profuse thanks for your enabling them not only to have a school, but one which is already a beacon of success. We began with only 20 students and the development plan aimed at 50 in each of the four forms but this year there are 60 in Form 1 and some 50+ have had to be been turned away. Last year the government decided to make secondary education free of fees and consequently many more youngsters are now able to attend. The government did not learn the lesson from the primary school fiasco in 2003 when over a million extra children turned up for school the Monday after primary education was declared free of fees. This has caused untold problems as there are not enough buildings, books, equipment or teachers in any schools. Although our school should only have 50, we have no option but to take more as it is a government school. The urgent need is for another stream to be formed but our finances cannot support that at present with all the attendant costs of buildings and teachers. We have a principal, deputy and five other government-paid teachers plus several qualified people who as yet haven’t been allocated a post anywhere and who work for just the small amount we can afford to pay.

This visit we were accompanied by Ian and Vivien Bell who opened the Forrest Hill Library at the  school. It’s a lovely new block with plenty of windows for light and air and solar panels to enable study in the evenings. The Kingsway School in Cheadle, donated bookshelves & £1,000 of books to start it off, 8 tables and 50 chairs (made by the deaf students at Sikri, the rehabilitation centre for the blind and deaf near Kisii,) and the  attached administration block. They also provided two laptops which are already in use using an external modem and the solar power. Communication between the two schools should now be possible and beneficial to both. A weather station for the Geography department will soon be in use along with the science equipment donated by Loreto 6^th Form College in Manchester.

We have partnered our next nearest secondary school, Orera, with Formby High School who have funded a water supply for the science laboratory they funded four years ago.

We took donated T shirts and pens to a local primary school, Oogo.  This school was founded in 2003 and is struggling in a difficult part of our extended community. The headteacher, Judith Kapere, is a friend of ours from Nyandiwa and we are trying to encourage her. They have been sent letters from all the students in a primary school in Buckingham where a friend of mine teaches. It is hoped that this interest from outside will raise the profile of the school and the expectations of pupils and parents alike. 

One of our major concerns about our school was the number of days lost by girls who have to stay at home during their period for lack of sanitary protection. We are hoping to establish a Well Woman Clinic starting with the provision of a revolutionary type of sanitary protection called a ‘mooncup’. These are manufactured by a small company in Brighton which is allowing us to purchase them at cost price. From November to February 3 women and their teenaged daughters have been trialling them and I was delighted to hear how successful they have been. A new latrine has been designed and will be built by May to provide the necessary basic washing facilities for our girls. On our next visit we will widen the trial group to include all Form 3 girls. One of the teenaged daughters is a student at our school and is well placed to provide any help the girls might need. It is hoped to eventually provide mooncups for all our girls in both the secondary and primary schools.

Form 4 is the final year when exam results are paramount. Some boys stay overnight on mattresses in a classroom to take advantage of the solar lighting but this opportunity is not afforded to the girls. We have funding now to buy/rent a piece of land and build a traditional house where Form 4 girls could stay during the week. We are aiming to provide a warden who would cook for them and generally maintain order! Our desperate need is for someone to allow us to use their land. Selling land is a cultural no-no so we need an enlightened member of the community living close to the school to see the need.

 

 

Health

All 10 local primary schools have been provided with latrines for the girls and during our last two visits  we officially opened them all – we didn’t christen them, I hasten to add!! The gratitude for something we would take for granted is profound.

Water harvesting at local primary schools is our next project. We are being funded in this by Luton Rotary Club in conjunction with Kisumu Winam Rotary Club. This project will involve installing guttering and providing large rainwater tanks.

Nyandiwa Dispensary now has an additional two 5-bed wards with solar lighting. We provide salaries for Edwin, the health practitioner and two nurses from the community one of whom would like to retire. The need is for a well-qualified nurse to take her place. The donation of a fridge has meant that some vaccinations are given free by the government. Other vaccinations are still covered by RPs. We are funding a health technician, Alfred, to visit two days a week to do tests for various diseases and provide Aids counselling. The donations of stethoscopes, diabetes testers, blood pressure gauges, operating gowns, sutures, needles, gloves, tablets, bandages, plasters etc and old spectacles are always well-received. Over the past 2-3 years we must have taken well over 150 pairs of specs and all have been used so more of the same please. Ibuprofen caplets are the order of the day. If anyone knows of a centrifuge going spare or where we can buy one cheaply, please let us know.                          

When mosquito nets are made available at low cost by the government we buy them in bulk for distribution by the dispensary.

Baby mortality rates are down to nil! Pregnant mothers are no longer in danger of delivering in a hedge on the way to the road to catch a bus to a hospital. Edwin carries out post-natal care too.

The dispensary has benefited from two short visits from an Australian medical student who has brought not only expertise but kudos to the establishment. Groups of Australians have provided the beds for the two new wards, the solar panels and other equipment.

We have just received Kenyan Dental Council consent to take a dentist with us this year so on our next visit Jonathan Robinson will be giving basic dental training to Edwin and other health practitioners from neighbouring clinics. He will check out the teeth of all the students in our school and we’ll be handing out the 600+ toothbrushes we have been given!

Small businesses

Three years ago we set up a young polio victim as a barber but this has not been as successful as we would have wished as his mobility, despite a new wheelchair, was problematical. We also set up a sewing workshop to make uniforms for our primary school and this is functioning well especially after the donation of another rather superior machine. The manager employs two more women and they make uniforms for two schools as well as traditional shirts and dresses. It was decided last year to offer small business loans to people who would like to set up a business and form a cooperative. We had several applications from which we have initially chosen four; a cow, vegetable-growing, chickens and a donkey and cart. We met last week with all those involved and there was a real air of excitement at the prospect of keeping cash in the community rather than spending it in the town. Rather than simply giving the money we have suggested a three-year payback scheme which can include offsetting any work done for those in the community who cannot afford it or donations of food, eggs, milk etc. against the loan.

Food has been in short supply, especially grains, since the post election troubles early last year. Fuel prices have rocketed and there has been a drought for the last three months. We funded two lorry loads of grains for our community last year which were distributed to 350 needy families each time. Another will hopefully be procured in March but it is dependent on availability.

Karowley is our small bungalow built on Ayugi’s compound. It has been built to be used by people visiting and working for RPs. It has rainwater hand-pumped to a tank, a tiled roof, solar power and beds – and a toilet! Last May we had an official housewarming at which Steve was officially made a member of the Luo tribe! Thankfully it didn’t involve any gory ritual! He had to light a fire inside and I one in the kitchen and he was given a stool so he’d always have somewhere to sit and a club with which to ward off enemies and wild animals!

 

Thankyou again for your donations large and small, one-off and regular in money and in kind and for your prayers for the work and for our safety.  We feel tremendously privileged to belong to the Nyandiwa community and through your support to be able to help the people out of their poverty. Your support is met with an overwhelming amount of gratitude and we would like to pass that on to you.

 

February  2009            

We returned  on 18^th from another very busy trip to Nyandiwa and thought a report might be a good idea to let you know how your money has been/is being used to help transform this community and several others.

Water filter workshops.

The original workshop at Nyandiwa continues to make and sell bio-sand filters on a fairly regular basis with 15 or so being donated this year to families in our community who would never be able to afford the cost but whose need is just as dire. Joseph, the manager, employs two local boys in the workshop and he uses his time to train people in new workshops further afield. There are established projects at Awasi, Simbi, Chabera, Rabuor, (although Rabuor is not too successful as even dirty water is in short supply) and now in the Transmara among the Maasai. This latest one is partially funded by Tearfund. Steve visited last week and there was a great deal of local interest including from a World Vision station. Two more workshops are in prospect at Kakamega and Maseno some miles north of Kisumu. The polluted water when filtered is pure, cold, has no nasty taste and is a real life-saver!

Education

Kolweny Kingsway Primary School has a new headteacher, Joshua, and we hope it will flourish under his leadership. It still functions on fewer teachers than there are classes. The three classrooms we originally built from 2001 are in good use, as is the one built last year. The government has paid for two more rooms – two to go and the original ‘stable block’ can be demolished to reveal the new layout behind. This time we took out letters from Fiddlers Lane Primary School in Salford who would like to set up a correspondence between the pupils so that they can gain knowledge about each other.

Kolweny Kingsway High School is becoming a victim of its success! It was founded in 2004 and at the end of its first 4 years 8 students passed with high enough grades for university or college. This is previously unheard of! Hope Beyond Form 4 is our scholarship scheme which at present is funding six students (2 had results high enough for a government grant) and will hopefully provide scholarships for students in successive years. Dependent upon income these may have to be rationed to a certain number per year. We await the final exam results from last year’s Form 4 which will be published at the end of February. (The academic year runs as a calendar year.) Very few of our students would even have gone to High School were our school not there so they and the staff all send profuse thanks for your enabling them not only to have a school, but one which is already a beacon of success. We began with only 20 students and the development plan aimed at 50 in each of the four forms but this year there are 60 in Form 1 and some 50+ have had to be been turned away. Last year the government decided to make secondary education free of fees and consequently many more youngsters are now able to attend. The government did not learn the lesson from the primary school fiasco in 2003 when over a million extra children turned up for school the Monday after primary education was declared free of fees. This has caused untold problems as there are not enough buildings, books, equipment or teachers in any schools. Although our school should only have 50, we have no option but to take more as it is a government school. The urgent need is for another stream to be formed but our finances cannot support that at present with all the attendant costs of buildings and teachers. We have a principal, deputy and five other government-paid teachers plus several qualified people who as yet haven’t been allocated a post anywhere and who work for just the small amount we can afford to pay.

This visit we were accompanied by Ian and Vivien Bell who opened the Forrest Hill Library at the  school. It’s a lovely new block with plenty of windows for light and air and solar panels to enable study in the evenings. The Kingsway School in Cheadle, donated bookshelves & £1,000 of books to start it off, 8 tables and 50 chairs (made by the deaf students at Sikri, the rehabilitation centre for the blind and deaf near Kisii,) and the  attached administration block. They also provided two laptops which are already in use using an external modem and the solar power. Communication between the two schools should now be possible and beneficial to both. A weather station for the Geography department will soon be in use along with the science equipment donated by Loreto 6^th Form College in Manchester.

We have partnered our next nearest secondary school, Orera, with Formby High School who have funded a water supply for the science laboratory they funded four years ago.

We took donated T shirts and pens to a local primary school, Oogo.  This school was founded in 2003 and is struggling in a difficult part of our extended community. The headteacher, Judith Kapere, is a friend of ours from Nyandiwa and we are trying to encourage her. They have been sent letters from all the students in a primary school in Buckingham where a friend of mine teaches. It is hoped that this interest from outside will raise the profile of the school and the expectations of pupils and parents alike. 

One of our major concerns about our school was the number of days lost by girls who have to stay at home during their period for lack of sanitary protection. We are hoping to establish a Well Woman Clinic starting with the provision of a revolutionary type of sanitary protection called a ‘mooncup’. These are manufactured by a small company in Brighton which is allowing us to purchase them at cost price. From November to February 3 women and their teenaged daughters have been trialling them and I was delighted to hear how successful they have been. A new latrine has been designed and will be built by May to provide the necessary basic washing facilities for our girls. On our next visit we will widen the trial group to include all Form 3 girls. One of the teenaged daughters is a student at our school and is well placed to provide any help the girls might need. It is hoped to eventually provide mooncups for all our girls in both the secondary and primary schools.

Form 4 is the final year when exam results are paramount. Some boys stay overnight on mattresses in a classroom to take advantage of the solar lighting but this opportunity is not afforded to the girls. We have funding now to buy/rent a piece of land and build a traditional house where Form 4 girls could stay during the week. We are aiming to provide a warden who would cook for them and generally maintain order! Our desperate need is for someone to allow us to use their land. Selling land is a cultural no-no so we need an enlightened member of the community living close to the school to see the need.

 

 

Health

All 10 local primary schools have been provided with latrines for the girls and during our last two visits  we officially opened them all – we didn’t christen them, I hasten to add!! The gratitude for something we would take for granted is profound.

Water harvesting at local primary schools is our next project. We are being funded in this by Luton Rotary Club in conjunction with Kisumu Winam Rotary Club. This project will involve installing guttering and providing large rainwater tanks.

Nyandiwa Dispensary now has an additional two 5-bed wards with solar lighting. We provide salaries for Edwin, the health practitioner and two nurses from the community one of whom would like to retire. The need is for a well-qualified nurse to take her place. The donation of a fridge has meant that some vaccinations are given free by the government. Other vaccinations are still covered by RPs. We are funding a health technician, Alfred, to visit two days a week to do tests for various diseases and provide Aids counselling. The donations of stethoscopes, diabetes testers, blood pressure gauges, operating gowns, sutures, needles, gloves, tablets, bandages, plasters etc and old spectacles are always well-received. Over the past 2-3 years we must have taken well over 150 pairs of specs and all have been used so more of the same please. Ibuprofen caplets are the order of the day. If anyone knows of a centrifuge going spare or where we can buy one cheaply, please let us know.                          

When mosquito nets are made available at low cost by the government we buy them in bulk for distribution by the dispensary.

Baby mortality rates are down to nil! Pregnant mothers are no longer in danger of delivering in a hedge on the way to the road to catch a bus to a hospital. Edwin carries out post-natal care too.

The dispensary has benefited from two short visits from an Australian medical student who has brought not only expertise but kudos to the establishment. Groups of Australians have provided the beds for the two new wards, the solar panels and other equipment.

We have just received Kenyan Dental Council consent to take a dentist with us this year so on our next visit Jonathan Robinson will be giving basic dental training to Edwin and other health practitioners from neighbouring clinics. He will check out the teeth of all the students in our school and we’ll be handing out the 600+ toothbrushes we have been given!

Small businesses

Three years ago we set up a young polio victim as a barber but this has not been as successful as we would have wished as his mobility, despite a new wheelchair, was problematical. We also set up a sewing workshop to make uniforms for our primary school and this is functioning well especially after the donation of another rather superior machine. The manager employs two more women and they make uniforms for two schools as well as traditional shirts and dresses. It was decided last year to offer small business loans to people who would like to set up a business and form a cooperative. We had several applications from which we have initially chosen four; a cow, vegetable-growing, chickens and a donkey and cart. We met last week with all those involved and there was a real air of excitement at the prospect of keeping cash in the community rather than spending it in the town. Rather than simply giving the money we have suggested a three-year payback scheme which can include offsetting any work done for those in the community who cannot afford it or donations of food, eggs, milk etc. against the loan.

Food has been in short supply, especially grains, since the post election troubles early last year. Fuel prices have rocketed and there has been a drought for the last three months. We funded two lorry loads of grains for our community last year which were distributed to 350 needy families each time. Another will hopefully be procured in March but it is dependent on availability.

Karowley is our small bungalow built on Ayugi’s compound. It has been built to be used by people visiting and working for RPs. It has rainwater hand-pumped to a tank, a tiled roof, solar power and beds – and a toilet! Last May we had an official housewarming at which Steve was officially made a member of the Luo tribe! Thankfully it didn’t involve any gory ritual! He had to light a fire inside and I one in the kitchen and he was given a stool so he’d always have somewhere to sit and a club with which to ward off enemies and wild animals!

 

Thankyou again for your donations large and small, one-off and regular in money and in kind and for your prayers for the work and for our safety.  We feel tremendously privileged to belong to the Nyandiwa community and through your support to be able to help the people out of their poverty. Your support is met with an overwhelming amount of gratitude and we would like to pass that on to you.