Following the success of the Dulwich College team in 2015, the same route was taken by 12 students of King's Rochester with 2 members of staff, Rev'd Stephen Padfield and Ms Caroline Keep. The trip visited both the Magnet school and the MAPED Maasai school, both of whom had money raised for them at a charity gala supper the previous February. The trip lasted 19 days starting on July 11th. The team had a preparation morning the day before where equipment was checked and the donated items put in bags for transporting.
The students conducted themselves extremely well and were a credit to the school. They took an active interest in the projects and were enthusiastic for each part of the trip, despite it bringing various challenges like long bumpy journeys, a significant change of diet and camping with no running water or toilets!
Magnet School
We found Magnet school in good working order. Over the years, they have added buildings and changed the site around although there hadn't been any significant changes since 2015. On the first day, Bishop KIBOBI took us around the site and explained the work of the school and how it functioned. The children were very forward and friendly with us, and the team enjoyed being with them.
Although WWSL has not been able to raise as many funds in recent years, the Bishop still uses the monthly grant to help pay teacher salaries. KIBOBI has a distant adoption scheme running, using Whatsapp updates to those contributing on a monthly basis. They are currently all from America. This could be extended easily into the U.K.
The students raised £1000 which went towards mattresses, paint, food and our board and lodgings. KIBOBI explained the workings of the school to us and how many students board for free, whilst others pay a small fee. The students did some painting and lots of general interacting with the children. The choir were a particular highlight and many of them went to choir practice and attended the morning or evening devotions.
Food has been an issue for East Africa with the recent drought. Food prices are high and it remains a challenge for the school to feed everyone. To add to this, the recent chicken virus worldwide has reduced their population to almost nil. They will be ready to restart the chicken programme in a few months. We took out several bags of gifts which were well received.
We visited the Sheldrick Elephant orphanage and the Kitengela glass factory, both local to Magnet.
Kibobi's connections with America continue to grow through Watch and Pray and his Texan Kenyan contacts. His son Baraka has been studying out there. This is an important focus for Kibobi who receives a lot of monthly support from donors.
MAPED
We found the Maasai in good spirits and making progress with their NGO. We camped in the usual spot by the church which now has windows and is looking very attractive. We found buying enough food an issue as the drought and import problems have led to a lack of food in the stores.
The team were met in Hedaru by Maliaki, the leader, and taken to the camp. Electricity has not quite reached the area although it should not be long now.
The school has made good progress. Having been registered last year, they are now recognised by the government and have been leased a large section of land for the school. There are 4 completed classrooms and 2 in progress. Also there is an IT building under construction ready for when power and funds come to resource it. They can proudly fly the Tanzanian flag being a registered school. They have 4 classes and 50 students, although only about 30 were present the day we attended. The new head teacher, Luke, is trying to get the school in shape although the leadership are not that happy with him. The longer term plan is to train Asanat, Maliaki's wife, in her teaching diploma, so that she can take over as Head, with Peter doing his diploma the following year so he can run the IT classes. They will then need to pay lower teacher salaries as they both live at MAPED. They are asking WWSL for help with this at the cost of £1200 per person per year. The leadership are also stating that anyone trained through MAPED should remain for five years in the school afterwards.
The team gave another £1000 to the project which they will use for teacher salaries.
Summary
The trip was very successful again and hopefully continued support from King's and individuals might able to be accomplished. Both projects have future plans that involve both sustainable living and further infrastructure development. Both projects remain upbeat and believe future progress is possible, both with local and international support.
The pictures above are 'At Magnet High School', below 'On Safari'. 'At MAPED' and finally 'In Dar es Salaam'
