Open Day / Sponsored Walk - 26 07 2008

The open day went really well…we had children playing football, swing, rope skipping. They also entertained visitors with songs and verses. At the end of the day, each child received a present for working hard during the term that ends next week. They received exercise books, pencils and colours.

The sponsored walk did not however take off as very few people had sponsored the children (obviously because of the high cost of living at the moment and the fact that many families are going without food). Instead, those who had pledged offered to give us the money and asked that we organize the walk later in the year when the locals would have harvested maize. We raised KShs 10,000/= (GBP 80) which I used to pay the three teachers honoraria as they had not received any payment for the last three months they have worked.

Karibu (Welcome) to the UJS Blog

Jambo (Hello),

The school and home for orphaned and needy children was my and my wife's idea of us contributing to the community that supported me so much when I was coming to the UK for my studies. We actually converted our own home and three rental houses into UJS. We however have the support of the local village elders and churches who have been instrumental in providing the much needed guidance and spiritual counsel.

To date we have over 80 children-49 boys and 36 girls- in the school. We could have had more but for lack of space. We have four teachers, one handling the Baby Class and Nursery and the rest with the primary section.

During the violence, our school kitchen and store were vandalized and torched by arsonists. We are now putting up one temporary kitchen , thanks to a donation of £200 from a women's church group in Sheffield, UK.

We also recently received 5 computers donated by Stevenson Junior School in Nottingham and generously delivered to our school by DHL at no cost. Our aim is to offer the children an opportunity to acquire ICT skills and to be a model school in this field.

The lack of electricity in the school has made it impossible for us use the computers or even set up an internet connection. In the short run, we intend to run cyber café at Kiminini market with a view to generating some funds for the school project as well as facilitating school communication. At the moment we have no single cyber café on the market and we have to rely on my mobile phone for internet access.

Closely tied to this is our wish to design and run a website for the school. Internet access will also help us run the Global Citizenship course at the school, which we hope to use to develop a curriculum on the proposed citizenship education in Kenya.

Our desire to achieve the best for the children is hampered by a number of factors:

• We have no electricity in the school
• We have no dormitory for the girls
• We have no piped water (We using a borehole at the moment - no pump as yet)
• We urgently need a sanatorium

We continue to raise funds for the charity, our next event is a sponsored walk on the 26th July (if all goes well). You are all invited to sponsor the children.

Ahsante sana (Thank You)