In 2011 I met Meshack Andiwo who lived in a small Kenyan village near the Luanda K’Otieno ferry that takes passengers and cars across Homa Bay to Mbita Point. He told me that small children in his community were struggling when they went to Primary School because they didn’t have the basics of English and arithmetic. They were too young to walk the distance to the nearest Primary School. Once the were old enough to walk the distance to school they were behind many of their peers and they became discouraged and lagged behind. He wanted them to have some early childhood education so they would not struggle or be discouraged and quit when they were old enough to walk to school.

I told my late Dad who was about 92 at the time,about this challenge and he offered some financial support through the CanAssist African Relied Trust to start to build a school for the community and it began with one small tin classroom and a latrine. And so it began.

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I visited the school today. There are several buildings now, a kitchen, clean new latrine, a fenced playground and a small office. There are currently about 50 kids at the school from preschool age to grade 4. They are learning the basics and being fed a breakfast of porridge and a lunch of beans or rice and vegetables, sometimes their only nutrition in a community that struggles with food security.

When we formed the CanAssist African Relief Trust in 2008, we determined that it’s mandate would be to provide sustainable tangible infrastructure and not programming or management costs (like teachers’ salaries or feeding programmes. This is for two reasons. One is that it would commit for a longer term and limit the number of communities that CanAssist donors could help. It also would foster reliance on outside help and May might foster dependency rather than encourage financial planning and self sufficiency. The latrines, classrooms, water catchment, text books, solar panels, fencing etc are tangible gifts to give the building blocks for running a school or clinic or community sanitation programme. Responsibility for managing and funding the programming is up to the recipient.

.Food supplies for the fifty kids at SP Geddes school cost about $15-$20 per day. Parents pay a small fee to cover the cost of the food but by the end of the week, they sometimes run out and Meshack and Caroline have to dip into their own means to support this. I plan to send a bit of money every so often to help them with this expense. If you want to help a bit with this, let me know as even a couple of dollars a week would be of great value to sustain these beautiful kids.

Caroline and Meshack’s grandson was named “SP” in recognition of my Dad’s generosity and the school was named the SP Geddes School. I met SP as an infant several years ago and what a treat it was to see him again today. He is now 9 years old.

Meshack and Caroline take good care of the children at SP Geddes School