The Friends of Kinyambu is a project in support of the school and village of Kinyambu in Kenya. The project has two parts:
1) Friends of Kinyambu, will provide regular support funds to the school to purchase resources and
2) The Kinyambu Primary School Library project, working with Cardinal Leger School in Saskatoon, is raising money to build a library.
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Wednesday, August 26, 2015

The Canadian Team Helps Finish the Fence and Build the Werbicki Reading Corner in the New Library.

Asante sana, thank you in Swahili, was something we heard often during our time working on Rainbow of Hope’s Kinyambu Primary School project in Kenya. Parents, teachers and students were excited to have us and grateful for the funding and personal assistance that we provided. It was a great first experience for me, taking a small group of Canadian volunteers to work on a project.



We had spent our first day in Nairobi making sure we had some of the resources we needed to spend a couple of weeks working in a rural village far away from banks and supermarkets. Other stops along the way enabled us to buy books and school supplies to be delivered, and lumber, tools and paint for our reading corner project.  

Our partner in Kenya, the Kinyambu Rural Education and Community Development ( KRECD) group, had things ready for us when we arrived on Feb. 20, 2015.  



KRECD chair, Simon Ngumbi and his KRECD directors and Stephen Mulwa and his staff at the school handled the logistics of getting materials and the books we bought to the school. Simon had already ordered the fencing materials that were waiting for us.

Some organizing meetings with Simon, parents and staff were necessary before things got down to the physical labour. 



The volunteer work had two separate components:  
  • completing the perimeter fence, half of which had been built a few years before, and 
  • building benches and painting a mural for the Werbicki Reading Corner in the library, named after the principal at Cardinal Leger School.  

The Fence

To complete the fence, some trees and underbrush had to be cleared, holes dug and then cement mixed to place around each post. Finally, four strands of barbed wire and chain link needed to be wired on. Our labour was useful, but paled in comparison to the 150 parents in total who came over the 5 days of fence building. 


Their main tools were pangas, long knives like machetes, grub hoes called jembes, and their hands.


 

Women brought their babies and young children and did equal physical labour to the men, carrying water, chopping brush with axes and pangas, and mixing cement.  



The atmosphere was social and cooperative. There was laughing and teasing and much interest in the wazungu, white people, who they were sure couldn’t do any physical labour with those soft looking hands! Their skepticism abated as we dug in to clear shrubs and small trees and helped mix cement.




After a lot of physical effort, the fence now surrounds the school. The young trees the children plant will now be protected from the animals who had been coming in and destroying them. Their previously barren schoolyard will be enhanced with trees.  

 The Library

The library building was completed last year. When we arrived the library was empty except for many bags of maize and beans that were to feed the students at Kinyambu and neighboring schools. There has been a severe drought and rural areas that depend on subsistence farming for their food are in trouble. The county provided the food to the schools so the children would at least get one reasonable meal each day. These bags were soon distributed and the building was ready for the painting and sawing and hammering that went on for the next week. 



The Werbicki Reading Corner soon took shape. Donna Kurtenbach, the designer of the murals, directed the various painters and worked with a couple of students to include them in the process. Johnson drew a huge giraffe and a child sitting and reading and he and Eric assisted with the painting. Julia Laforge, Jessica Van Eyck and I helped with whatever jobs needed doing. 



Charlie Matt was in charge of building some two-level reading benches. With the help of a few parents, sturdy benches soon surrounded the reading corner.



The school staff had to cope with five extra people wanting to eat lunch in the tiny staff room and store their things in the head teacher’s office. We caused constant disruption in the classrooms as we walked by. Visitors are rare in this area and the children were always drawn to whatever we were doing. My specialty, as a former teacher, was controlling the many curious children who crept into the library and hung at every window as the week went on. Julia Laforge spent most afternoons after class on the playing fields teaching students to play a new sport for them, Ultimate, a Frisbee game needing few resources. The energy of the participants and the shouts of delight and excitement could be heard all over the school grounds.






Finally, it was finished. Our last morning at the school was spent on final details and cleaning up. We invited the parents and staff for a “grand opening” in the afternoon.  




The school staff coordinated the opening and over 80 parents lined the room to see the completed projects and look at some of the materials we had bought for the library.



I demonstrated the reading corner by reading a story to a large group of parents seated on the benches laughing and translating when the English was too difficult. There was a wonderfully relaxed atmosphere in the room as the parents and teachers enjoyed some drinks and cookies with us. It had been a couple of weeks of immersion in a very different part of the world and the warmth of the people made us feel very welcome. 

Before we left, each of the Canadians was presented with a gift we could take home that would remind us of our wonderful experience.


            
The five of us went home feeling very satisfied. While we brought things to the school, we went home with great memories.

So the fence is completed and the library is built with some of the supplies in it. What a great way to end the fifth year for the Friends of Kinyambu! All of the people involved--students at Cardinal Leger School, friends, relatives, friends of friends, and just anyone who lent a hand--can be very proud to have helped the students and parents of Kinyambu school enhance their educational resources and experiences. But we aren't done yet . . . There is still more to do and more fun to be had too.

More books and furniture are still needed for the library (and for the classrooms). If you would like to help, you can send a donation to The Alphonse Gerwing Foundation or to The Rainbow of Hope for Children. The addresses are at the top right. 

Stay tuned. We will have some exciting news in the new year!