One of the three completed latrines that will dramatically improve sanitation for students at the Mutundu School in Kenya – funded by CanAssist African Relief Trust
I am happy to share this letter of appreciation from Michael Gichia who has been the African contact with the Murera Community Empowerment group and the Mutundu School where the CanAssist African Relief Trust has funded construction of new latrines and provision of clean water.
See these earlier posts for background on this project.
Dear John,
I hope you are doing fine as we are here in Kenya. I would like to let you know that we have completed the proposed project successfully and I’m taking this opportunity on behalf of MCESO to thank all the trustees, board members, staff and the friends of Can Assist African Relief Trust for their generosity in support of our project titled, provision of clean portable drinking water and construction of enhanced sanitation facilities in Mutundu primary school in Ruiru District 0f Kenya. Your financial commitment has incredibly helped and has allowed us to reach our goal. We would like to let you know that your financial inputs towards our proposed project have greatly helped the project turn into a successful and replicable model and the situation at Mutundu pry school has improved from worst to best.
We pray that may God keep continue giving you good health as well as good will to keep on helping marginalized communities.Please find attached our end project for your files.Too, we have kept all the project invoices safe.We look forward to submitting another project proposal to Can Assist African Relief Trust soon.
Thank you once more and God bless.
Sincerely,
Michael.
Before and after photos of the boys latrines at Mutundu School. In addition to the latrines, sanitation has been improved by the construction of handwashing stations. CanAssist has been delighted to have funded these sanitation improvements.
On July 1, I issued an appeal/challenge on behalf of the CanAssist African Relief Trust to raise money to build two classrooms at the Hope School in Mbita, Kenya on the shores of Lake Victoria.
The Vancouver-based Sasamat Foundation had offered $10,000 and up to another $5000 to match 2:1 donations that were received from CanAssist supporters to build the school.
This is the schoolyard of Hope School in mid August 2012. The site of proposed CanAssist classrooms.
By the end of July we had reached our goal and in late August the money to start construction was sent to the Hope School.
The CanAssist Hope School Classrooms are coming along in leaps and bounds. I could not believe my eyes when I received photos today of the construction under way. The barren piece of ground in the schoolyard is quickly being converted into a learning setting for the children of this community who have previously been taught in a rudimentary building or under a tree. Most of the children in this neighbourhood are disadvantaged and some have simply not been able to attend school even up to age 9 or 10.
The CanAssist Hope School Classrooms are coming along in leaps and bounds.
This project will transform the community for these kids. And as I have mentioned previously, this not only provides the classrooms for the children, it gives some employment to local workmen who struggle to find employment.
Thanks to everyone who rose to the challenge. I hope you are gratified with the way that your gift to these children is working so quickly. I look forward to visiting this school in early February and participating in a Grand Opening celebration.
My daughter recently pointed out to me that I was fortunate to be the recipient of most of the feedback from the communities in East Africa that we help through the CanAssist African Relief Trust. She’s right. How can I share that with other supporters of CanAssist?
I do consider myself lucky to have been able to visit the schools, clinics and communities that have been supported, in one way or another, by the CanAssist African Relief Trust…or rather by the donors who give to CanAssist to keep our activities afloat. One of the appeals to our donors is that we pay no Canadian salaries, travel at our own expense and therefore every donated dollar is spent by Africans in East Africa. The cost to us as volunteer travellers, however, is repaid ten times over in the wonderful experience of interacting with our friends in Africa.
Recently a group of Canadians who are supporters of CanAssist visited the B.L.K. Muwonge Secondary School in a remote, small Ugandan town called Kyabazaala. One of the students at the school sent back a letter of thanks to CanAssist supporters. I thought it only appropriate that I share this. I hope you find it as motivating as I do to keep doing what we are working toward to help communities in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania with their infrastructure needs.
Students at the B.L.K. Muwonge Secondary School in Kyabazaala, Uganda write exams in a building that was constructed with funding from the CanAssist African Relief Trust.
A huge THANK YOU is in order for everyone who responded to the Canada Day Challenge I wrote about in this blog on July 1. Through your generous donations and a bonus from the Sasamat Foundation in British Columbia, CanAssist has secured the money to build the two needed classrooms at Hope School in Mbita Kenya. Everyone is delighted. I will be sure to provide updates as the school classrooms rise from the dust.
Kennedy Onyango is our contact and the founder of the Hope School. I first encountered him in July 2010. He exemplifies the typical story of relatively ordinary Africans (but motivated ones) who see a need in their community and they dedicate their personal resources and time to finding ways to improve the plight of the people who live around them.
In Kennedy’s case this was to help vulnerable young children in his region – kids who lived in poverty or were orphaned – get a start at being educated. He founded a “school” which is divided into two locations. One is in two crammed classrooms behind a bank in the town of Mbita and another on a larger property in the hills beyond the town. There are 160 kids who come to these makeshift classrooms.
In addition to giving them education, the school also provides a mid-day meal for the children. Sometimes this is the only food that they get for the day.
Kennedy Onango holds up a sign that marks the beginning of the CanAssist Oasis of Hope Garden for the Hope School at Mbita Kenya
Kennedy first asked CanAssist to help develop a small farm where they could raise vegetables and fruits to supplement the otherwise bland gruel diet provided to the kids. In early 2012, CanAssist gave the money to start this up and very soon Kennedy had created what he calls the “Oasis of Hope” on the rurual school property.
In mid July, I got this report from Kennedy. It surpassed my expectations for success in the early months of developing this garden. Kennedy writes:
This month in CanAssist funded ‘Oasis of Hope Garden’, we take a deeper look at this farm, which is celebrating its first harvest. In a single 3 month production cycle, 480 kilograms of sourghum, 120 kgs of beans have been harvested so far from a 2 acre ploughed open farm. The same 3-month production cycle is also projected to yield a 120 kilogram of maize (corn). This has clearly reinforced our earlier thought of making the garden both food granary and source of funds to support key school operations. It’s true, a good income can be realized from the selling of sourghum.
Why is this important? 140+ children at Hope School have never had an opportunity to drink nutritious porridge from the initially barren school farm yard. Rural peasant families of Mbita don’t have the money to take a chance on unproven technologies. Demonstration farms like the CanAssist funded ‘Oasis of Hope Garden’ give families a firsthand look at the income increases they can achieve with an investment in appropriate technologies for improved on-farm yields
You can see how CanAssist’s approach of working with poor, marginalized rural communities of East Africa transforms lives on our first ever bumper harvest in this school farm.
We remain appreciative for CanAssist supporters and with special thanks to Sasamat Foundation for having donated funds towards classrooms construction at Hope School, besides nutritious meals, the children will now get conducive learning environment!”
The first step in creating a garden was to fence the property to keep protect the garden from wandering neighbourhood goats. This dry corner is the same place where the banner picture of maize plants was taken three months later.
I hope that this enthusiastic endorsement of the work that we are doing through CanAssist makes our donors smile with satisfaction. With the support of Canadian donors, Kennedy and others in his community have been able to take a barren piece of land and turn it into a veritable Oasis of Hope for the children at Hope School and those who live around it. We are making a difference to individuals and communities in East Africa. Asante sana for your help in achieving this.
Kennedy Onyango from Mbita Kenya, has sent along this photo of the celebrations happening now at the Kanyala Little Stars school on Rusinga Island. CanAssist and her supporters are most pleased to be a virtual part of this special Day for the school.
A month ago, I wrote in my blog about the need for latrines at an elementary school in Kenya – “Sanitation – or lack of it”.
The CanAssist African Relief Trust board approved of this project and sent money (about $5200 Can) to the school last week to start construction of latrines for the school with 8 stances for girls, 8 for boys and 2 for staff. This will be a huge improvement in the sanitation for the school,
Today, I received photos from the community showing that their construction has already started. Once these people have the funding, they dig right in (literally) to get the job done.
It will be delightful to follow this project through to completion. Congratulations to the community for your enthusiastic initiation of this improvement to your school.
Thank you to Michael Gichia of the Murera Community Empowerment and Support Organization for the photo updates.
No wonder English as a second language is challenging. Sometimes I have trouble with it myself.
I wanted to write a blog item about two projects that CanAssist has funded recently in Kenya and Uganda. Both were to construct a roof on a building. So there are two roofs. Does that seem right? When I say the word, it sounds like “rooves” – but then that doesn’t look right either. The plural of hoof is hooves; thief, thieves; half, halves; but rooves? My word processor spell checker rejects this spelling. So I looked it up. It turns out that either spelling is correct, but that “rooves” is the archaic form. I’m not sure whether to take that as a complement on my historical knowledge or an insult that I am getting to be…archaic.
Regardless, it seems that the roofing business has been stimulated by two projects in Africa, thanks to CanAssist.
The first was for St Gorety Secondary School in Nyatike District of Kenya. As often happens in Africa, this community received some funding for a needed classroom at their school from a local governmental initiative. CanAssist was already building one classroom so they thought that they would add the second at the same time to save costs. Unfortunately the grant only covered the cost of the floor and walls. The second classroom was left without a roof and the community did not have access to the $3500 needed to put one on.
They became worried. Bricks that are used to make these buildings are all locally made and if not protected with a roof when the rains come, the structure may become damaged. Students at Loyalist Collegiate and Vocational Institute (LCVI) and Kingston Collegiate and Vocational Institute (KCVI) heard about the plight of fellow students in Kenya and took up the cause. Through their fundraising efforts, CanAssist has received donations that will cover the costs…and cover the building. It didn’t take long for the Kenyan school to get moving with this once they knew the funds would be available. This week I received notice that the roofing is completed and the classrooms are able to be used. The Kingston secondary school students, through their Quarters for Classrooms campaign were able to raise the roof!
Volunteers from Queen’s Health Outreach celebrate the completion of CanAssist funded classrooms at the St Gorety School in Nyatike District, Kenya. Students from LCVI and KCVI in Kingston raised the money to “raise the roof” on this building.
In addition, in early June, a group of CanAssist supporters from Kingston and Whitehorse Yukon (yes we have supporters across Canada) headed to Eastern Uganda to visit two communities there where CanAssist has funded projects at schools and a clinic. These travellers managed to raise about $9000 in donations which were spread between a secondary school in Kyabazaala, Uganda and the Olimai Health Centre. The clinic needed equipment but the priority was to put a roof on a new building for the facility. Like the St Gorety School, walls had been constructed but the money to roof the building was not there and the concern was that the structure would become degraded by rain and weather the longer it was left uncovered. In early June, I sent the money for the project. The Olmai Clinic in Uganda was quick to put CanAssist money to use to roof their new building. Last week photos arrived of the roofing completed. When these folks get to work, things happen quickly. The new structure, along with other improvements that have come through CanAssist, will raise the status of this facility from a Level 2 to a Level 3 clinic – thereby qualifying it for increased programming for the community.
The Olmai Clinic in Uganda was quick to put CanAssist money to use to roof their new building.
So, the work has been done. The school and the clinic have new buildings completed thanks to the generosity of Canadian supporters of the CanAssist African Relief Trust. Now all that is left is for me to decide – roofs or rooves in the report. Since my spelling checker rejects the latter, I will go with roofs. And bring myself into the 21st century.
As a reward for making it to the end of this post, here is a CanAssist Youtube video about the St Gorety School roof project with music by the St Gorety choir. Mission Accomplished.
We may have been busy celebrating Canada Day in Canada but would you imagine that it is a special day in some African communities as well?
I received some great pictures from the Hope School in Kenya this week. This school is the one I blogged about last week – the Canada Day Challenge. I spoke with the Director of the school on the weekend and advised him of the generous donation from the Sasamat foundation towards classrooms at the school and he was ecstatic.
“We will all celebrate Canada Day and the generosity of your Canadian friends at the school on Monday when I announce this gift to the staff and students.”
Children at the Hope School in Mbita Kenya, celebrating Canada Day 2012.
On Monday the children gathered to celebrate their Canadian sponsorship and express appreciation. With home-made signs they gathered for juice and acknowledgement of the help their Canadian friends have offered.
But there are Canadian flags flying elsewhere in East Africa as well, thanks to CanAssist.
A group of CanAssist supporters recently returned from a visit to Uganda and sent me photos of their trip. Included was one of the Canadian flag that flies proudly over the school compound. When I visited the school last year, the principal laughed and said “That Canadian flag is made of nylon and it flies well in the breeze. Our Ugandan flags are heavier material and it takes much more wind to get them going. So Canada is always brightly represented even when our flags are limp.”
The St Gorety Secondary School receives a Canadian Flag, and support for two new classrooms at the school.
When I visited the St Gorety High School in Nyatike District of Kenya last year, I took with me a flag for the school – one that was sent by Virginia Puddicombe, a teacher at KCVI in Kingston. Virginia also sent along photographs and letters from Canadian students to their counterparts in Kenya and the Africans have sent greetings back. A kind of pen-pal relationship has begun. We hope that, in this digital age, some face-to-face interaction can happen through Skype and the Internet.
While we proudly celebrate Canada here, there are people around the world who also pause to be grateful for the generosity and support that Canada and Canadians offer to them.
Oh, Canada!
P.S. We have raised about half the $2500 necessary to get the Sasamat promise of another $5000 for the Hope School. If you have not yet takent the opportunity to help us reach this goal in July, more information about how to contribute is available on the CanAssist Hope School web page.
The children at Hope School celebrate Canada Day in appreciation of the generosity of their friends in Canada who have supported the school.
Every year around July 1, I unfurl a big, red and white Canadian flag over my balcony with pride. I consider myself fortunate to live in a country where people value the notion of respect for one another.
Collectively, we respect our democratic government process, even if we don’t always agree with our politicians.
We respect and protect the rights all Canadians despite religious, cultural or ethnic differences. Diversity makes up the colourful fabric of our nation. On Canada Day, new citizens from around the globe are welcomed to Canada in ceremonies across the land. I remember attending one such occasion a few years ago when the family of one of my co-workers from Bosnia and Herzegovina officially became Canadian. At that ceremony, the Mayor of Kingston had been born in Scotland, the Governor General in China (both were women, by the way) and the Ontario MP was born in Holland. That tangible recognition of our varied backgrounds reminded me of what it is to be Canadian.
And we are generous to the rest of the world with our support – military, moral and financial.
This week I was reminded of this generosity when I received notice that the Sasamat Foundation in British Columbia will donate $10,000 to the CanAssist African Relief Trust to be put toward building two classrooms for the Hope School in Mbita, Kenya. This gift is being given with no strings other than the accountability of CanAssist and the recipient community to use the money for their school. It is independent of other obligations and given without cynicism or suspicion, cultural or religious bias, but with trust that the community in Africa will utilize it to benefit their children. I think this is a very “Canadian” gesture.
In addition to their generous $10,000 donation, the Sasamat Foundation has presented CanAssist with a challenge. They will donate another $5000 to the school, matching donations that CanAssist receives 2:1. But this has to happen within the month of July.
Are you be willing to support this initiative with a donation of $50 to CanAssist and the Hope School? You can make a secure, tax-receiptable donation online now with a credit card by following the Canada Helps link below. You can even select a small monthly donation option through the Canada Helps link. Indicate that your gift is to bolster the Hope School Fund.
CanAssist is always happy to receive a donation by mail.
CanAssist African Relief Trust, 562 Sycamore Street, Kingston, Ontario. K7M7L8
When I was selling my house three years ago, prospective buyers were always anxious to see the kichen and the bathroom(s) as a priority. What was the bathroom countertop like? Were there two sinks? A rain shower? One of those toilet lids that closes quietly without banging? Magazines and web sites intrigue us with bathrooms where we could luxuriate all day. We in North America are certainly spoiled when it comes to bodily ablutions and evacuations and we have all been in service station washrooms that make us cringe.
According to Unicef and World Health Organization data, less than 35% of the population of Kenya has access to “improved sanitation” – which might just mean a clean ventilated outdoor latrine. Flush toilets for most…forget it.
One of the areas of focus for the Canassist African Relief Trust is to help schools in East Africa improve the situation for their students by constructing new latrines and having rainwater collection for both drinking and washing.
Let’s compare our expectations for sanitary toilet facilities with what some students and teachers endure in Kenya
These are the two buildings that serve as toilets for 300 pupils at the Mutunda School in Kenya
Recently CanAssist received another request for latrines from a school in a region where we were not acquainted with anyone as a contact. So we sent one of our Kenyan colleagues to check it out.
Initially he was surprised that the request was coming from this community which, on the surface, seemed to be reasonably well off. But as he went a bit more rurally to one of the schools, even he was shocked by what he found.
The Mutunda Primary School has about 300 pupils and ten teachers. There are six stances in two toilet buildings to serve the students. The latrine for teachers had long ago collapsed and was unusable. The student latrines were in disrepair. There was no access to water for hand washing.
The toilets that were used by the teachers have collapsed and can not be used. Want to teach here?
Dan sent photos. I have seen other latrines like this in Africa and remember the smell. Just looking at the photos almost made me gag.
The girls’ toilet. No further explanation necessary.
How on earth can you teach young people the health advantages of using clean sanitation facilities and hand-washing when the school toilets look like this?
The school has requested $5000 to build new toilets – ventilated drop toilets that are 30 feet deep. There will be 8 stances for the boys, 8 for the girls and two for the teachers (about $250 for each unit). They will also install some rainwater catchment gutters on the school building to help promote hand-washing. Hand-washing has been demonstrated to be as effective as clean drinking water to reduce disease from fecal contamination.
The CanAssist board has yet to review this proposal but I can’t imagine that we will not approve of this project. How can we refuse? This is not only a matter of sanitation and health but also one of simple dignity.
johnageddes 