We have almost reached the end of what has been another challenging year for the charity, our partner schools and for the wider community we support in Kenya but thanks to our own community of friends, donors and partners we have been able to stand by our schools throughout these difficult times.
We have continued to ensure that all 3,000 children across our partner schools, including at our eighth partner school where the programme was introduced in April, have received a daily term-time lunch; and despite the significant increases in the price of all food items that make up this meal we have been able to do this without permanently reducing portion sizes at a time when for far too many of these children it has been their only wholesome meal of the day.
We have continued to ensure our schools have had a constant supply of clean water for drinking, cooking, cleaning and hand-washing long after rainwater and groundwater sources have run dry as a result of the prolonged drought which has now extended to four rainy seasons.
And we have steadfastly continued to provide vital funds so that schools can employ and pay the salaries of more than 75 extra teachers and essential support staff, and for other school running costs including repair and maintenance activities, where the funding that schools receive from the government is so wholly inadequate and unreliable and where it is too much of a burden to expect parents alone to cover these costs.
Away from these on-going activities, work has continued on the redevelopment of our eighth partner school at Mkamenyi Primary, which is now in its fourth year and where we have invested £200,000 (and counting!). By the time the new school is fully complete, hopefully sometime in 2023, it will have raised even further the high bar we set for how primary schools in a rural East African context can look and function, and have completely transformed the learning environment for the 600 children that attend the school now and the tens of hundreds more that will join the school in the years ahead, as we have done and continue to do for children all across our network of partner schools.
This work is only possible because our loyal and generous community of supporters in the UK and elsewhere around the world continue to stand by us, even through the challenges presented by the Covid pandemic and now the cost-of-living crisis.
We take this opportunity to thank you for your friendship and support – in whatever capacity you have helped the charity this year or in those previous – and wish you a peaceful, restful and joyful festive season.