Kenya Blog 4

Friday 27th July

Today was a mixture of hard work, traffic jams and pure joy. I have just come from a very lengthy trustees meeting. This is one chance each year when I can meet with them and discuss progress and future plans. We spent several hours talking about the budget for next year. There are some exciting developments in the pipeline, but we will have to work harder on fund raising then ever before if we are to see them happen. It will be our greatest challenge to date. If this set of plans does fails to get the income to sustain it then we could possibly fold. Let’s hope it is worth the risk. We all want SCI to be a continuing success. It is very difficult for my Kenyan trustees to understand the market place there is for fund raising in the UK; so many good causes all after a piece of the pie.

Earlier there was considerable frustration as we encountered the heavy traffic as people wrestled to get out of town to spend the weekend in their home village. Parents tend to retire to the village of their childhood. Children and families working in Nairobi are keen to visit as often as possible. Friday is always a bad day for travel, especially in the city.

The day began with a visit to the slum of Kibera, largest in East Africa. We were to visit a new classroom for a girls soccer academy secondary school that SCI had funded. It was amazing to see how much self confidence the girls had. They gave poetic recitations and sang and danced for us. You would think they were from a top girls high school. These girls are taught by volunteer teachers who have finished school but are unable to find the funds to get a teaching qualification with further study. Habbakuk is the 20 year old headmaster. In the UK he would pass for a fresh faced 16-17 year old. They told me that their method is to simply follow the experience of their best teachers at school. It’s working! The girls are progressing very well. They are being taught (as are all Kenyan children) in English. This is their third language. Watch out UK youth. These students will become the adults applying for your jobs in the future.