Makayauni School Building
Project
"One
room at a time"
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| Start October
2008 |
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Fundraising
Target: €40,000
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Raised to Date (January
2010): €31,500
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Friends of Kitui now
extends to Sussex in the UK.
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People
in Shoreham-by-Sea, Sussex, learnt of the work of Friends of
Kitui and wanted to contribute to the Makayauni
school building fund. To
start the fund-raising endeavours, Maureen and Bernard
Challen, who celebrated 40 years of marriage in August
2009, are asked that any gifts to them be in the form of
donations for the building of a new
schoolroom as a part of the Makayauni school project.
Spurred
by Bernard and Mo Challen's 40th wedding anniversary,
donations have been made to the Trocaire-Friends of Kitui
account via the Belfast
office, so that income tax can be reclaimed on behalf of UK
taxpayers ("Gift Aid").
Further
activities are being planned to continue the
fund-raising.
More
information later . . .
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Maureen and Bernard
Challen
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A
message from Maureen and Bernard :
"After
Pat came back from Kenya a year or so ago, we talked about
the work that had been carried out and the scope of needs
there. Together we watched the video of the water tank
inspection at the school in Makauni. This highlighted the
lack of facilities at the school. (The video is available
on the site below)
Our
understanding of the Kitui initiative began with Pat’s
engineering background in providing a water supply. Later
the need for education and the provision of school places
was seen as an important element in the local community
life. The
enthusiasm of the people in Makauni encouraged us to get
involved.
Since
we are both involved with education, and this year we
celebrate 40 years’ of marriage, we thought a way to
start fund-raising would be to have an anniversary party
and to collect donations for the school project.
Ideally,
we would like to fund a classroom from Sussex, requiring £3500,
or near to £4000 equipped. The local community provides
bricks and some labour, but
money is needed for some materials and a contractor
is needed – as is described elsewhere on the site here.
Any
donation, however small, will make a difference- please
help!
Thank
you! "
For
UK Donation form click HERE
For
Irish Donation Form, or for donors from other countries,
click
HERE
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Makayauni
School Programme
Our
target is to complete the construction of an 8 classroom school by December 2010
which will be handed over to the community and run as a non
fee-paying public school.
The community of Makayauni has now
delivered on its promise of providing bricks, sand and hardcore to get
this project under way. On February 5th we viewed the 20,000 bricks and
many tons of materials gathered on the school site. The people told us of
the impact of the famine on their lives, and we undertook to provide
supplementary food for the children for one month to relieve the pressure
on the parents.
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The
existing school at Makayauni
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About Makayauni School Building
Project
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| Makayauni
Primary School in the east of Zombe, in the Kitui District of Kenya, has
230 students in 8 classes. The school has two “buildings”, each with
four classrooms. The building which they describe as “semi permanent”
is constructed from poor quality bricks made locally. All rooms
have dirt floors, in fact consisting of several inches of fine dust. Only
one room, perhaps 4m X 3m, has a door, and serves as staff room, office
and store.
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The second
“temporary” building also has four classrooms, and as shown in the
pictures on the left, it is constructed from rough timber plastered with
mud. The corrugated iron roof leaks in the rainy season, and acts like a
radiator for the sun’s heat in the dry season. The school lacks even the
most basic requirement– a decent blackboard. A single latrine (toilet)
serves the entire school. |
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this, the students are hard working, disciplined and cheerful. When we
visited to school, they put on a wonderful performance of singing and
dancing to thank the people of Dalkey for supporting the construction of a
water tank, which was completed May 2008.
With your help, we hope to build a new
8-classroom school in the coming year. The total cost is €35,000.
Hopefully we will be able to raise enough funds for
additional staffroom, and store. |
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As dusk
approaches, and after welcoming visitors in song and dance,
the children return the meagre furniture to the mud-walled
classrooms. |
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Left: Bricks made by the community have
been collected in readiness for construction |
Right: The community has
also gathered tons of sand and hardcore as their
contribution to the project. |
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The Children of
Makayauni are looking to us for help. |
The Dalkey fundraising group working on
behalf of the community of Makayauni is now under way and
has already raised nearly 50% of the costs for Phase 1 of
this building project, which aims to complete four
classrooms and a staff room by July 2009. A second
fundraising group in Sussex, on the
south coast of England, is now mobilising (November 2008). Under the guidance of Friends of
Kitui, these two groups will work independently towards the
common purpose of constructing a new school for the
children and families of Makayauni. |
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Many thanks to all who helped our
fundraising "Bag Pack" on November 9th 2009, which
raised €3,300. Special thanks to the Transition Year
students at Loreto Dalkey who have us such tremendous
support!
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We
support people in need in Kitui, Kenya.
