Advertisement
Published: August 10th 2010
Hello friends of One Child’s Village! Some of you may know that One Child’s Village (OCV) was recently in Kenya. The purpose of the trip was to monitor infrastructure projects completed in the past year - such as the volunteer quarters/dormitory and brick school addition partly funded by the Alberta government’s Community Spirit Initiative, International Development Program and Scona High School’s fundraising campaign from 2009. We also experienced our trip to Kenya as a crucial opportunity to nurture our valuable relationship with Mercy Children’s Centre (MCC). We have to say that after spending 10 short days in Kenya, we feel closer than ever to our dearest friends, and we are overwhelmed by the progress that has been made possible at the Bumala school by OCV supporters. Though we did not provide regular travel blog updates this time around (as Internet access was scarce and time was even scarcer!) we’d like to take a moment to give you some of the highlights of the trip with a few photos (more at the end of this message!)
School Dance Competition! As usual, we had a very warm welcome by Mercy Centre School in Bumala. Every visit, the students welcome
us with traditional song and dance. This time was extra special. We learned that two groups of students within Class 5 had recently performed in a district-level school competition. Eighty schools were in the competition, and the troops from Mercy Children Centre won!! They performed their winning choreography for us - it was quite a treat and we will share the video with you all shortly. We were told that this "rehearsal" was good practice for them for the competition at the provincial level, which occurred the day after we left. We learned later that the Mercy Centre troop received an honourable mention. Charles (Director of MCC) and Josephine (Assistant Director) told us that the school’s success has truly "put them on the map" so-to-speak among the other local schools. We are so proud of MCC and we send them our congratulations!
Sewing/Life Skills Class MCC held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new permanent brick school addition. One of the classrooms is devoted to the Sewing and Life Skills Class, taught by Emma and Scolastica, for some of the older students as well as for Class Four and Five. Upon entering the classroom, they proudly showcased cakes that
their class had made for the occasion - with frosting no less! Needless to say it was quite tasty! We think the Sewing and Life Skills Class is training some great future cooks and tailors! We now have a list of items needed to improve the sewing class, which we hope to specifically raise funds for in the near future.
Hoodies for All! The school inspection was followed by the distribution of fleece hoodies to the girls in Class Five. The material for the hoodies was donated to MCC by an OCV donor as part of a pilot project to determine whether the sewing students would be able to make the hoodies. (We should also mention that additional fleece was donated for this trip - and within a few hours, the sewing teacher returned with six more fleece hoodies for the Class Six boys!) We feel the hoodies are a success and the students look very smart in their new threads (not to mention they are warm)! The plan now is to follow-up with a hoodie campaign. The goal is to have
all 300 students in Bumala decked out in a fleece hoodie by this fall.
Stay tuned!
Grandmother Visits The next day, we were able to return to the homes of ten of the grandmothers who are caretakers of some of the children at the school. We rented some boda-bodas (bike taxis) to be able to cover the 20 plus kilometer trek in a "timely" (and less fatiguing 😊 manner. We had brought a photo of each grandmother that was taken during a previous visit to give alongside the 1,000 shillings (about $15) per grandmother. The photos drew a lot of attention, each grandmother in turn pointing themselves out in the photo and giggling to no end! More laughter and hugs ensued once they found out they could keep the photo. Perhaps it is the small things in life that count… Grandmothers who had provided baskets during the last visit were given extra funds for their hard work. They really appreciated this unexpected gesture, and we return to Canada with more baskets yet! Most importantly, we were able to easily see the progress that has occurred with funds they previously received. For example, one grandmother was able to rebuild
her hut and now has a dryer safer roof over her grandchildren. Another grandmother was able to buy seed to grow millet. We witnessed her harvesting it upon our arrival. She can now grind the millet and sell it for a small income. Other grandmothers we visited are too old and frail to run a business out of retirement, so the funds they receive go directly to the children’s food and clothing needs...
School Yearbook for MCC While at the school, we were able to spend a half day taking a class photo of each student. We had a great time inviting the children to smile for the camera. The key is to say "cheka ndogo" (our equivalent of "say cheese"). Cheka means "laugh" in Swahili and, once spoken, it is almost impossible not to! So we return to Canada with many smiles in digital form! The plan is to build a school yearbook for Mercy Centre, and
hopefully continue the tradition for the school’s posterity.
Health Clinic We were thrilled to meet with Janet, the school nurse that MCC hired last September. Set up in one of the dormitory rooms, the nurse’s office is neatly equipped with a desk and two small beds. She promptly provided us with a list of medical supplies the clinic was in need of, and we happily obliged. We went to a pharmacist in Kisumu who was able to provide us with everything on the list - and generously threw in some extra bottles of Tylenol for free upon learning the supplies were going to a school for orphaned children! We also purchased a couple of medical reference books for children’s health that Janet requested. The clinic is now stocked with all the essentials for first aid, malaria, deworming, disinfecting, colds, flu, etc. for the next several months. We couldn’t purchase the tetanus medicine just yet as MCC doesn’t have a fridge to store it in. The good news is there is electricity to run a fridge though!
We interviewed Janet to learn more about her work at the school. She was pleased to tell us that malaria has
gone down in the past months, as indicated in her log book where she makes daily entries to maintain monthly statistics on the children’s health. She attributes the decline in malaria to using some locally purchased medicine during OCV’s last visit. It is not always easy to measure our successes with concrete statistics, but on this trip Janet showed us the school’s health records. She indicated that health issues at the school have been reduced by 50%!t(MISSING)o 60%!s(MISSING)ince OCV instituted the health clinic only 8 months ago (September 2009). This translates into healthier children with fewer medical issues -a critical outcome when even small injuries or infections can quickly become life threatening.
Artists in the Making! We had fun with Class Five, who indulged us with their artistic talents! Based on a project inspired by a volunteer who visited the school last year, we again brought "cotton sheets" for students to draw on with oil pastels. Each student got their own 18” X 18” swatch of cloth and was asked to draw whatever they wanted to. The class immediately took to the task with very serious concentration - we didn’t hear a peep the whole time!
Once done, each student took turns showing their art work. We hope to display their work at an event in Edmonton this fall. Details coming soon! And thanks again to Class Five for the awesome pictures!
Agricultural Success Last year, One Child’s Village purchased 3 acres of land beside the existing Bumala school to be used for food production (the school consists of 5 acres now). So we were pleased to see all 3 acres and more in cultivation and exhibiting an extremely high-yield crop of maize, sukumawiki (greens), ground nuts, onions, and more. Charles and some of the teachers are highly skilled farmers and are producing crops that far surpass anything else grown by others in the local region. (We were able to compare MCC crops to those of a farmer with an adjacent field. It was neat to see firsthand how Mercy Centre’s maize plants were much taller, stalked with many ears of corn, and just about ready for harvest.) This means that the children are getting a highly nutritional diet and the school is now able to keep some food in storage for next year. A step toward self-sufficiency!
Piloting an Income Generation Project We have been working on developing different types of income generation opportunities to help the Mercy Centre school in Bumala with their goal of becoming as self-reliant as possible. Recent projects have included such things as tailoring and computer lessons for community members, some food sales, and more. During our trip, we discussed the idea of a pilot project in running a small motorcycle taxi service - called “boda boda” (pronounced “bōda bōda”). Boda-bodas are the most common and affordable form of transportation in rural Kenya. We learned that, on average, one motorcycle can generate up to $200 profit per month. If successful, this small initiative could be expanded to a small fleet of motorcycles, where income generated could cover the entire operational expenses of the school. The project has the side benefit of adding employment to drivers in a market that has great demand. Most importantly, however, it develops an increasing independence for the school and reduces their dependency on western aid. In turn, this would free donor funds to be used more for education programs and social justice initiatives rather than purely
basic needs.
Not a "Goodbye" but a "See You Later"… We return to Canada with clear ideas of how Mercy Centre wants to continue working towards self-sustainability, as well as their immediate needs that they would like assistance with. Indeed, a few ideas for fundraising campaigns have been sparked! We also return with wonderings about the longer term goals Mercy Centre has. As the older primary classes are close to graduating, Mercy Centre must now think of ways to ensure that all students wanting to move on to secondary school have the option to do so - despite the hurdle of high school fees that they cannot afford.
As our time in Bumala came to an end, we dreaded having to say goodbye once again. But we feel privileged to have witnessed Mercy Centre’s progress made possible by OCV donors, and of course to have witnessed all the bright smiles we were surrounded by throughout our visit!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.289s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 6; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0511s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
