Another busy day, full-on out visiting our projects from 9am through to 7pm today.

Much of it was spent at Oaklands Primary School, which we’ve only been supporting since 2016. It was my first trip there and it was quite an experience. The school sits on a coffee plantation – the land was given to the Government by the owners of the plantation to build a school, which teaches children of the people who work there. The school is surrounded by acres and acres of well-tended coffee plants, punctuated occasionally by small groups of tiny houses in which these families live.

But the situation is far from idyllic. What is already hard work (paying about 300 shillings a day, about £2.20) has been made more difficult by ownership changes, resulting in mass lay-offs and re-employment on casual contracts. Workers are not guaranteed wages throughout the year, or even during the three coffee harvests a year. And when they don’t get work, or seek it elsewhere, they lose access to the houses they in. I was taken to meet one of these workers today, a single mother of five who has a child at the school. She works on the plantation with a nine-month old baby strapped to her back – scared of losing her job and her house.

All of this has had an impact on the children at the school in the past few years too, with absence rates being very high and the performance of the kids attending being below average. Thankfully, the work Kipawa is doing here is making a big difference.

I met with the headteacher Joseph this morning who couldn’t have given more praise for what our donors have achieved here. His clear view is that the food programme (we are doing breakfast porridge and lunch for all the kids at Oaklands) has delivered “a drastic change in performance: for example, there is no absenteeism any more. Two years ago, there were sometimes up to 100 absentees every day, but now it is more likely a handful. And that’s because there is food available”. He also thinks that the KCPE performance will improve this year – from an average of 215 to 250 – and that is because the children are better able to concentrate. Our social workers there – Mary and Moses – agree. They’ve noticed a change in behaviour since the feeding programmes started; kids are no longer lethargic and sleepy but energetic and motivated all day.

We are making improvements to the facilities too. I saw the final stages of the new girls toilet block today, with a solid watertight building in place with proper latrines and a very deep pit. This is not only safer and healthier (for disease prevention) but more dignified too. What was also interesting is that the Government had started building a new boys toilet block earlier this year: but it remains uncompleted on the site, with no reason given for its current state.

At the end of my time there at Oaklands, a young girl called Faith spoke on camera on what Kipawa has done for her and her friends. She can speak for herself:

Later in the afternoon, I had lunch with the 15 students Kipawa is sponsoring through a few secondary schools in the Ruiru area. These young people were identified as they left primary school as being able to benefit from secondary school but whose families would likely not support them financially to do so. The money our donors are sending to Kenya is doing two things for these vulnerable kids: ensuring that a lack of fees, uniforms and other equipment isn’t preventing them from attending school regularly; and it provides wrap-around support from case workers like Monicah who works on the secondary school programme. Monicah spends all of her time checking on the welfare and wider environment of these students, intervening where needed.

The kids range in age from 14 through 17, with the oldest five of them due to sit their KCSE exams (the Kenyan Certificate of Secondary Education) throughout October and November. Like teenagers anywhere, they were shy at first but were soon chatting away: They were keen to find out about where I live in Scotland, about education in the UK, and the girls in particular were amazed to hear our Prime Minsiter and First Mininster are both female.

Most importantly, they were enthusiastic about their time at school, their interests and their ambitions for the future. And it was terrific to hear one of them really wants to be a doctor; another wants to study electrical engineering; a couple more think they they’d be good social workers. There was some discussion on the way home tonight about the next steps for some of these kids: certainly, we at Kipawa should be thinking about if and how we can continue to support some of these young people should they move into colleges and university.

I have few more trips planned for tomorrow, including going back to Mukuyu School to hand out some new books, footballs, toys and other things. These were purchased today using money donated in a recent appeal. You can still donate to the appeal here:
http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/DavidWelsh

It's that time of year again where we head off to Kenya to meet with our partners and to see all the work your donations have been making possible. David will be visiting Mukuyu and Oaklands schools at the end of the month and would love to be able to take some gifts with him. We have had a particular request for toys and other equipment for the nursery classes and would be very grateful for any contribution you can make.

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/DavidWelsh

Our President, Kieran Hudson, and his brother, Paddy, visited Kenya last month to visit the various projects funded by Kipawa. Read all about the people they met and the work they saw there - all made possible by our generous donors. 

"After a long day travelling on the Wednesday, Marnix (the Director of Macheo, our partner organisation in Kenya) collected Paddy and me from Nairobi and we arrived back at the volunteers' house at Macheo Children’s Home just before midnight.
 
We only had two full days with Macheo and lots of things we wanted to see and do, so we made an early start on Thursday morning and headed out to Mukuyu Primary School. 
 
My last visit to Mukuyu was in 2011 when our project was in its first year and things have changed so much since then. The school looks much better thanks to the classroom refurbishments, the new toilet blocks and the pathways around the school grounds that have all been provided by Kipawa in the last few years. I had seen photos of these from previous Kipawa trustee visits but it was nice to be back and see everything for myself. 
 
The children were excited, as always, to have Scottish visitors and were keen to say hello, exchange hand shakes or high-fives and have photos taken. They were also particularly keen to touch our hair, if they could reach!
 
It seemed we had brought some Scottish weather with us as it was damp and relatively cold, by Kenyan standards. The ground was very muddy so we did not witness a huge outdoor school assembly as is usually the case when we visit. Instead we dropped into each classroom individually to say hello and introduce ourselves. It was probably better this way as we were able to speak to the children more easily and see what they were learning in class. Many of the classes had prepared short poems or songs that they were eager to perform. It’s always great to see the kids singing and dancing so enthusiastically.  
 
This year we had brought with us some handmade cards from Victoria Primary School in Edinburgh. The p4 children there had drawn pictures and written messages about their school and about Edinburgh too. It was really lovely to see how delighted the Mukuyu kids were to receive these and how interested they were to hear about life in Scotland. We had arranged in advance for the equivalent aged children at Mukuyu to do something similar for us and we were duly presented with a large bundle of drawings and messages to bring back with us and give to the kids at Victoria Primary. It was so simple to arrange but has been a really positive thing to do for the pupils at both schools. Now that the children have made a personal connection we can hopefully keep the link going between the schools and exchange photos and messages throughout the year.

​One of the community projects funded by Kipawa away from the school is the Family Empowerment Programme. Families are given small amounts of seed capital as well as training to start their own small businesses. There is ongoing support and these businesses provide a more reliable source of income for the families involved, allowing them to pay rent, purchase food and pay school fees.

​The second women we met was Joyce, who has three children at Mukuyu Primary School and just started in the Family Empowerment Programme one month ago. She said things were going well so far and told us that one added benefit of running a fruit and veg stall was that even if business was slow, any produce leftover at the end of the day could be used to feed her family.

We also visited the home of one vulnerable pupil from Mukuyu who Margaret (a Kipawa funded social worker) has been supporting in recent months. The mother was not home but we found a young boy called Christopher (around 4 years old) outside the house heating up some milk on a stove. The boy was looking after his baby sister, Joy, while their mother was working nearby. To see this tiny baby being cared for by such a young child really stopped us in our tracks. It is a sobering reminder of the harsh reality facing many families in Ruiru - parents being forced to leave young children at home so they can go to work to earn enough money to feed their family.
 
Throughout the day we had opportunities to speak with the head teacher, deputy head and class teachers who are very pleased with the support that Kipawa is providing and the difference it makes to their school. We spent most of our day with the social workers funded by Kipawa, Margaret and Moses. They are the people we rely upon day-to-day to oversee our projects and are the best people to speak to about what is working well and what other areas might need addressed. 
 
After a full day at Mukuyu Primary School we returned to Macheo for a meeting with Julie, their head of Finance. She took us through the processes involved in running that side of the organisation and she was also able to show us receipts for all of the things that Kipawa has paid for over the past year. Our first full day in Kenya ended with a power-cut and an early night, which was probably not a bad idea as we had another busy day ahead!
 
Friday started with a meeting, before heading out to visit our other Primary school. We met with James who is the head of the Monitoring and Evaluation team. He explained the new processes in place for assessing the needs of the communities in which we operate. An extensive data collection exercise has taken place in Ruiru and analysis is ongoing to identify what areas should be prioritised in future. This is a new way of working for Macheo and for Kipawa and we will keep you informed of how this shapes our plans for 2017 and beyond.
 
James also showed us the new software that is used to log the activity of the social workers and other employees in the field. The system has reduced the amount of time spent on administration and allows better data reporting and analysis to take place.
 
After our meeting we visited Oaklands Primary School, arriving just in time to see the porridge feeding programme in action. This year we decided to expand our projects to a new school and this is the first time that a Kipawa trustee has visited Oaklands since the programme began.