About The Kenya School Project

When the Kenyan government agreed to start providing free primary schooling for all children in 2003, a good idea ran into unexpected problems. The Kenyan government had signed on to the UN Millennium Development Goals, one of which is to provide free primary education to the world's children by 2015. So Kenya eliminated the existing tuition fee of about $15, a small sum but enough to keep many children from getting an education.

The first year of free primary schooling, 2003, a million new students came to school, students from the poorest families, for whom tuition had always been the obstacle to learning. Under-equipped and structurally unsound to start, schools are now overcrowded, with few or no books, no libraries, no educational materials, electricity or running water. The system is stretched to the breaking point. Students sit on the floor or the window sill. Many students are so hungry they can barely concentrate.

Nevertheless, it's vital that these children come to school and stay in school. Because education empowers. So the Kenya School Project was established to provide the boost the poorest children need to swing a leg up onto that first rung of the economic ladder.

Our approach is two-prong. One is pure philanthropy. We supply schools with library books, textbooks and educational materials like pens, rulers and paper. Even something as simple as outdoor toilets improve school retention rates, especially for young girls.

Our second approach is self-sustaining philanthropy, a powerful way for people to help themselves. With our Kenyan partner Help Self Help Centre, students learn a vocational skill in a six-month course.

A teen from the heart of Nairobi or the base of Mt. Kenya can choose from tying fish flies to raising honey bees and silk worms, raising mushrooms, sewing and tailoring, maintaining a seed bank, three-crop agriculture, natural resource management, welding, weaving and knitting.

The vocational centers work well in an urban setting like the Nairobi slum of Ruiru and in rural areas such as Naro Moru in the shadow of Mt. Kenya. Students learn, produce and market as young entrepreneurs.

WHERE WE WORK, WHAT WE DO

Malindi. The Gahaleni Primary School has 889 students in four rooms. There is no electricity, no clean water and until winter 2005 not even out door toilets. Very few students have textbooks or paper on which to copy from the board. Hunger is a pervasive problem. We want to supply Gahaleni with textbooks, educational supplies, a school garden and the resources to connect to the water pipeline which is slowly working its way toward the school.

Ruiru. Located in one of Nairobi's slums, the Help Self Help Centre teaches vocational skills and small business management to teens who have no livelihood. After a six month course, they are expected to pass the government trade test. We wish to provide small start-up loans to launch their careers. Students are selected based one of several criteria. They are orphans or head of their household or come from HIV/AIDs affected family. Our goal is to supply the tools which will make them financially independent.

Mt. Kenya Region. This location is a bee hive of activity where the emphasis is on agriculture and natural resource management. How to keep the elephants out of the field and how to raise sunflowers, press them and sell the oil, make soap from the leftovers and animal feed from the dregs or using gravity water for irrigation where life is a drought or flood. The same skills taught at Ruiri are available here. A hostel is under construction which will help support this Enterprise Development Centre as well as educate teens for a career in tourism.

Please contact us direct with any questions:

The Kenya School Project
"Sharing The Excess"
W6657 Firelane 6
Menasha, WI 54952

info@kenyaschoolproject.org

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