Donors respond to help victims of Fire at Kyaithani Secondary School

Fire Damage to 37 bunks and personal items

One evening in early May while the students were attending a study session at Kyaithani Secondary School, some still unknown malicious person poured petrol on most of the bunk beds in the boys dormitory buildings and set them on fire.

37 out of the 52 boy boarders lost all their items. 

Most of the families of these boys do not have the money to replace the lost items. 

Boys now sleeping on the floor of a classroom

Damage to personal items, books and the building totalled almost $3000.
 
Fortunately, there were no injuries or casualties as a result of the fire or during the major efforts by everyone to put it out before it spread to the other school buildings.

Members of the Sunshine Coast-Sechelt BC (Canada) Rotary Club have donated $1500 to help and the Chatelech Interact Club in Sechelt contributed an additional $300. 

Chatelech Secondary School Interact Club donates $300 to help

These Chatelech secondary students are making a bond with the students at Kyaithani as earlier this year they contributed $300 towards the scholarship program that we have to help enable students from poor families to attend school here in this remote rural area of eastern Kenya.  They have also begun an email exchange program between the two schools.

Thanks to every one who has contributed to this emergency need.

Anyone wishing to make a donation can do so on the "donate" button near the top right of this page.  Please add a notation that your donation is for the fire.

Terry

New Solar Project to Proceed - major funding milestone reached

eager recipients of solar pilot project lights

In October 2014, with the financial support of the Rotary Club of Sunshine Coast-Sechelt and two individual donors, Terry and Jan initiated a pilot solar lighting project for 148 students and teachers at Kyaithani Secondary School and Lower Yatta Girls Secondary Boarding School in the Ndandini area of eastern Kenya.  This pilot project provided individual solar lights to the secondary students to enable them to read and study at home rather than having to come to school before sunrise in order to have light to do their homework and study.  It was also intended to gather valuable usage and benefit data as input for a follow-on project that would provide solar lights like these to every primary and secondary student in the area.

We are now happy to report that we have been successful in raising $34,000 of the $37,000 cash donations that we are seeking.  We now have the minimum amount that we need to proceed with this project. We hope to yet raise the additional amount and also to secure a grant from The Rotary Foundation to completely fund the whole $60,000 project.  We are targeting to have the project complete by the end of 2015.

The partner Rotary Clubs behind this initiative are:
Sunshine Coast-Sechelt BC Canada
Machakos, Kenya
Gibsons BC Canada
Belleville Ontario Canada
Sussex NB Canada
Richmond Sunrise, BC Canada
Terrace BC Canada
Richmond Sunset, BC Canada
Rotary District 5040 (BC)

The major focus of this solar and education project is to improve the learning environment and academic achievement of the 1300+ students in 7 schools in the Kyaithani area (5 primary schools and 2 secondary schools). It is based on academic performance improvements which we have seen achieved since providing some solar power and lighting and a couple of used computers in 2011 at the Kyaithani Secondary School. It is also based on requests from the administration of the 7 schools.

Let's get lights for all 1300+ students in the Ndandini area!

There is no power available in any of the 5 primary schools. These schools have very primitive facilities. There are no computers, internet access or any electronic teaching aids.

This project will see a basic solar power system installed at the 5 primary schools and, for each of the 7 schools, it will provide 2 internet-enabled laptop computers (with software) and 1 projector. After the project the teachers at every school will have lighting in their working area, computers for research and lesson preparation, and a projector for classroom presentations. Each school will have sufficient power for charging the laptops and projector. Volunteers from our partner clubs will spend time at these schools training the teachers in the use of these computers and projectors and their access to the internet specifically in ways to improve the curriculum and academic performance of the students.

The project will also provide individual solar task lights for each of the 1300+ students to enable them to do their studies and homework at home. Providing overhead solar lights in 2 classrooms at Kyaithani Secondary School in 2011 resulted in students coming to school at 4am and staying late into the evening to study. This is not ideal and not appropriate at the primary school level.

Here is some initial feedback that we have received from the principal of the secondary school after providing the pilot solar lights to the 148 pilot participants in October.  The provision of such lights in the homes for all the schoolchildren in the community will have a profound effect immediately on child and family health and on the children's academic performance.

The students are able to use the solar lights at least four hours a day,two hours in the morning and two hours in the evening while undertaking their studies.The families also use the  lights as they also undertake their studies.When the students are not studying, the families use the delights for other purposes especially while taking their meals.The lights have never run out of power battery.The lights are usually recharged in an open place at home.The family is able to save at least KSH 350 that was used in  buying paraffin. 

This is quite an overwhelming support from you and the families of the students are really happy. At least the students have no excuse for not doing their assignments at night.  Once again we say a big thank you.  

A new Challenge sent to test our support - Need to repair a broken axle

On our last day in Kenya we received bad news - the axle on the bowser had broken.

Broken Axle on Bowser Needs Critical Repair

This is critical as the tomato crop at the community garden is growing well and needs 60 20 litre jerrycans of water each day to keep them growing.  Within days, there will be no water in the community garden water tank and without water the tomato plants will die.

Tomato Plants in Danger of Dying from Lack of Water
Despite willingness of Ladies to tend the crop

Also, most of the water tanks at the 7 schools are in need of water deliveries and without the bowser operational, they too will be empty within days forcing the 1300 students to bring polluted water to school, once more scooped out of the dry riverbed.

We are working to get this repaired as soon as possible.   The cost of this repair is about $2500.

Please consider helping us with this emergency repair expense.

You can donate by clicking on the "donate" area at the right (Canadian donors receive a tax receipt).  Or contact Terry at terryumbach@hotmail.com if you are a Rotary Club and would like to help us out with this or partner with us as we support Ndandini village area in various ways.

Thanks
Terry

(update October 23 2014:  Thanks to support from several donors and the Rotary Club Sunshine Coast-Sechelt Canada, we were able to get the bowser repaired and today it is back in operation.  Thanks again to our donors for your support of Ndandini and your generosity!)

Starting the Pilot Solar Light Project at Kyaithani

Its September 29 2014 and the exciting start of the pilot solar light project for the cluster schools in the Ndandini and Kyaithani village area of Kenya.

At SunnyMoney Nairobi Office

We begin with an early morning visit to Sunny Money, the Nairobi distributor of several inexpensive but reliable solar lights.  Sunny Money has a goal of eliminating the use of kerosene in Africa for lighting by 2020.  They have already sold 1 million lights in east Africa and are making major headway in Kenya.

Their website is www.sunnymoney.org .

Loaded up with 148 solar lights and 6 water filters  

Soon we had the 148 solar lights loaded in our van and were off for the 4 hour drive to Ndandini village.

We had researched Sunny Money as our chosen distributor and various solar lights and decided for the pilot project to use the model s2 and s20 solar lights from d.light designs as well as some Sun King ECO solar lights.

Setting up the Solar Presentation at Kyaithani

 With the solar products set up on display and Cynaidah and Lameck from Sunny Money on hand to make a solar presentation in Swahili for the students and parents, we were ready.

Lameck captivates the crowd 

 From the first moment, the students and parents were spellbound.  The thought of having light in their homes at an affordable price was unbelievable for the parents.  For the students, being able to study at home had been unthinkable before today.

Lameck shows a multi-room solar light setup

In addition to talking about and demonstrating the solar lights chsen for our pilot project, Sunny Money also demonstrated some more expensive solar lights including ones that could charge cellphones and even this multi-room model.

At the end of the presentation we handed out the solar lights for our pilot project to the 138 students of Kyaithani Secondary School.

Kyaithani Secondary Students
 getting Solar lights

Kyaithani Secondary students
getting solar lights

Lights for Lower Yatta Secondary
Girls Boarding School

And we presented the solar lights to Ann, principal of the Lower Yatta Secondary Girls Boarding School, which would be used at this new school which has recently become the 7th school in our "cluster".

Everyone wanted to be in the photo and showing their new solar lights.

138 happy students with their solar lights

And the parents were so excited for their children as well.

Excited and happy parents

Then we were off to make the presentation at the new Lower Yatta Secondary Girls Boarding School. 

Solar presentation for Lower Yatta
Secondary Girls Boarding School

Jan presents solar lights for the girls

This trip we also brought Sawyer water filters for each school to use for filtering any non-potable water brought to the school and for a teaching aid to encourage parents to acquire a filter for home use.

New Sawyer water filters
Kimali and Ann
Principals at the 2 Secondary Schools

Students love drinking potable filtered water

First thing the next day the phone started ringing at Kyaithani Secondary School.  Parents were wanting to thank the donors for the solar lights that their children had brought home.  They were also asking about how these lights could be bought.

All the students had brought their lights back to school and it was great to see them all sitting outside in the sun in each student's special spot for charging.

Lights charging at school next day

 All too soon we had to leave Kyaithani to return home.  It was heartwarming to get a smiling send off by the students with their prized solar lights!

Bye for now.  Until next trip.

 We expect the solar light pilot to run until the end of January 2015.  We expect to collect usage data and information to help us determine the scope and direction for our next solar project which could see each of the 1200+ students in our cluster of 7 schools equipped with a solar light for their study use at home.

Keep watching our blog for progress reports.
Terry & Jan

Working Towards a Solar Lighting Project

Since learning of the failure to secure the CRCID grant, we have refocused our efforts towards providing solar lighting for all the 1200 students at the 6 schools in the Ndandini/Kyaithani area of Kenya.

Solar technology is changing rapidly and there are many new lights available at quite reasonable prices (although even a $10 light is beyond what most villagers in Ndandini can afford).

When we installed the first solar lights at the Kyaithani Secondary School in 2012, students began comning to school at 4am to study.  As we move towards providing lighting for primary school students, encouraging them to come to school at 4am is not ideal.

So we are looking to provide each of the 1200 students with their own individual solar light that they can use at home for reading and studying.

Before we launch this big project, we are going to undertake a smaller pilot project to determine the benefits of this approach.

Jan & Terry will be going to Kenya in late September and will introduce the solar lighting pilot project and provide some initial solar lights for the trial project.

Stay tuned for updates on this new project and direction. 

UPDATE re potential project

The project that we have been working towards since 2012 will not be proceeding.  It was predicated on receiving a significant grant from CRCID (Canadian Rotary Collaboration for International Development), who in turn has been obtaining their grant funding from the Canadian government through CIDA and more recently CIDA's successor DFATD (Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development).  CRCID has received notice from DFATD that they will be receiving some funding for the next 12 months, but the funds to be provided are only sufficient to support 2 of the 9 international projects that CRCID had approved for its potential funding.  The two projects to receive funding are projects that had previously received funding support from CIDA and CRCID in prior years.

We do still have good support from our Rotary Club partners and local Rotary District 5040 here in BC.  So we are now looking at a potential scaled back project that could still provide significant benefits to the 1200+ students at the 7 schools in the Ndandini/Kyaithani area.

Stay tuned in to this blogspot for upcoming news about this.

Because of the disappointing news of the lack of DFATD/CRCID grant support, it is even more important that we attract more Rotary partner clubs to our project efforts in the Ndandini and Kyaithani area of eastern Kenya.

If you are reading this post and are new to our work, I encourage you to read the additional older posts in this blog to see our history and the things that we have accomplished because of partner support.

If you have any questions, you are encouraged to contact me.

Terry

Potential New Project (that we have been working towards since 2012)

We have been working with some of our Rotary Club partners since 2012 to develop another project plan that would benefit the villagers in the Ndandini area, and to make grant applications to assist with its funding.

We have not yet completed this task, but we are still quite hopeful that it will happen soon.

Here is a 6 minute youtube that outlines the work that we have done in Ndandini since 2007 and introduces the potential new project.  Its actually an Invitation to Partner with Us.

Please think about how you can help and get involved with us.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTcQAKmBlOU

Thanks.    Terry