Kyaithani Cluster Schools project receives grant from Rotary Foundation

After almost 3 years of grant seeking effort, our project has finally succeeded.

Just before Christmas we received the news that The Rotary Foundation (in the USA) had approved our grant application for the enhancement of education within the cluster of 7 schools in the Kyaithani area of Kenya.

With all the grant funding our project will be able to:
1. implement a solar light rent-to-own program to provide a light for each of the 1300 students and teachers in the 7 schools.
2. implement a computerized Learning Resource Center in each of the two secondary schools.
3. provide certificate level online training for the 70 teachers in the 5 primary schools.
4. provide solar-powered teaching materials at each of the 5 primary schools.

The project will take about 2 years but we expect that the solar program and the implementation of the Learning Resource Centers will be complete in 2016.

Some of our 1300 students with the 140 solar lights from our pilot project

Thanks to:
our 10 Rotary Club sponsors
Rotary District 5040
The Rotary Foundation Canada and the Government of Canada
The Rotary Foundation (International), and
all our supporters of all our work iin Kyathaini.

For individuals and other Rotary Clubs, you can help our efforts at these cluster schools by supporting our scholarship program.  Check out www.ndandini-scholarshipfund.blogspot.com . 

Project team meets in Kenya

November 1st was a great day.  All our project members got together in Wamunyu village at the Kenya Connect Learning Resource Centre, which is midway between Kyaithani (where our schools are located) and Machakos (where our host Rotary Club is located) and only about an hour from Kyaithani village.

Our Project team meets in Wamunyu Kenya 

It was the first time that the teachers and administrators from the two secondary schools had met together with our Rotary project members from Machakos and Canada.

Even more significantly, we were meeting at Kenya Connect's Learning Resource Center and meeting with their two IT field managers/trainers (James and Patrick).

Over the past several months we have been working together with Kenya Connect in Maryland USA and Kenya to determine how we can best work together to leverage off their experience in implementing/operating a Learning Resource Centre so close to our own area of eastern Kenya.  The opportunity to have three similar Learning Resource Centers with common objectives and sharing the support structure is encouraging and compelling.

In addition to updating everyone with the status of our project, everyone learned about the capabilities of the Kenya Connect Learning Resource Center and was able to see it first hand, including some computer demonstrations by two grade 6 students being taught by Patrick and who first touched a computer only 3 months ago.

Kyaithani Cluster School Project gets Rotary Canada grant

In August 2015, the Government of Canada agreed to provide The Rotary Foundation Canada (TRFC) with funding for the next 5 years to support international humanitarian projects.  Grant applications could be submitted starting October 1st.

We are happy to report that our project was the first Canadian project to receive this new Canadian Government grant funding.

As a resut of this extra funding, we will be able to expand our project deliverables.  Instead of providing only a few computers to start a small computer lab at Kyaithani Secondary School, we will be able to implement a full computerized Learning Resource Centre at both Kyaithani Secondary School and Lower Yatta Secondary School (the 2 secondary schools within the Kyaithani Cluster of area schools).

Each Learning Resource Centre is expected to have 20 student computers with a large local/offline repository of educational and vocational material as well as internet connectivity.

Below is a photo of a Learning Resource Centre that we will be modelling our own centers after.

Kenya Connect's Learning Resource Centre at Wamunyu 

Thank you TRFC and Government of Canada!