First I thank
God for bringing us this far and for enabling us to continue with this noble
cause. I also thank all our partners, friends, sponsors, family, parents,
teachers and even our beloved children. Without every one of you in this great
Happy Day Junior School family things would not be the same.
We apologize for
not being able to give out our reports on time and we say sorry to all our
partners. From now on we hope to be giving out our reports on a monthly basis.
This year (2013)
began with a lot of politics in our country and almost all of us were uncertain
of what awaited our country after the elections. Most parents fled from Nairobi
our capital city and where our project is located and went to their rural homes
– with their children. The first term which started on 4th January
was a very tough one everyone in all schools and especially for teachers
because they had to be very cautious when dealing with children from different
backgrounds and different ethnic communities. After the general elections in
our country which were held in March 4th, tension was still very
high and school had to be closed for 3 weeks and this interfered most with
school time. We thank God that 1st term ended without any particular
incident to any of our members.
The term was
also full of challenges due to the high cost of living experienced worldwide
and especially due to the fact that our children in Happy Day Junior School
come from very poor households. That term saw us buy exercise books, pencils
and many types of stationery for the children. We also had to request all
parents to provide their children with tissue papers and soaps for hygienic
purposes which proved to be a burden to some of them. During the same term,
most of the parents were unable to pay the small amount of money that they are
required to pay in the school for their children. This made the school
management to be very strained because teachers then lacked very essential
items like biro pens and chalks. We say thank you very much to those parents
who supported the school by remembering to pay the school fees for their
children. This went a long way into helping your kids learn. First term came
thru to an end on 10th march 2013 with a sigh of relief.
We opened school
on 6th may 2013 and now the political tension and temper had cooled
down and we immediately entered into serious studies. All the parents were now
back to Nairobi, and thus their children reported back to school. The challenge
that we faced during the term was still the same we had during the first term.
Life was so hard for most of the parents and so they were unable to pay the
school fees. Another challenge came with the increase of food prices by the
government due to the introduction of the VAT (value added tax). This really
affected our feeding program and sometimes we had to let the children go home
for lunch and come back for the afternoon classes. This affected most of the
kids because some of them did not find food for lunch at home due to the fact that
the parent didn’t have money for lunch. Food prices are still very high as I
write this report and we are still forced to let them go home for lunch.
During the same
term, teacher Kellis daughter Irene became sick and required money to enable
her to undergo surgery. Thanks for the support that someone gave to her. The
girl has not yet been operated on because the money has not accumulated to what
the hospital needs in order to treat her.
The same term
saw a family of four kids who are in the school lose their bread winner and
their only parent. We say poleni sana to David Mwangi, Peter Mwangi, Amos
Ndung’u and Jane Wangare. These children are now parent less and they need our
help so that they can be able to achieve their goals in life. The school is
already providing free education to the 4 kids but they still need lots of
support from all of us.
The last term,
which is the third term of the school year started on 2nd September
2013. The challenges are still on and we are still trying to make ends meet and
to run the school project smoothly. We received visitors from Norway this term,
and they brought us books to read and learn. We really appreciate you ladies
may you be blessed. The baby class kids use the building bricks and they are
having a lot of fun – and learning a lot through them. I have already given the
books to the teachers and they say the books are helping a great deal though
they are written in Norwegian. The number works in the books are just similar
to what we teach in Kenya.
The feeding
program is also coming to a standstill because the government again increased
the VAT on most of the food items. This has forced us to stop providing
porridge (maize flour and sugar) to the children until when we shall be able
to. We regret this decision because some kids don’t take breakfast at home
knowing that they will take porridge during break time.
We are hoping to
hold a graduation party for the kids in pre-unit as they go to join primary
school. This is a way of appreciating them and showing that we care about what
they do. We have 12 kids in our pre-unit class which is taught by teacher Mercy
who is in pre-school teacher college. Every kid in that class will require 500
ksh so that they can get the graduation gowns to wear on that day and the
remaining cash we can buy some snacks and presents for them as they go to the
next class. We have written news letters to the parents regarding the same and
are waiting for feedback from them. Any person who is willing to help in anyway
please talk to Annelene if you are in Norway and to Margaret if you are in
Kenya. Let us help make that day a memorable one for our school kids.
The school
currently has 54 children, 5 teachers, 1 caretaker and 1 cook. Most of our
children do not have full school uniforms due to the financial constraints. We
have provided some of them with uniforms and we still have some of them who are
unable to buy.
Children’s report
Meshack Mating’e
is a 7 year old boy. The father died 2 years ago and the mother is jobless.
This boy is one of the best kids in the school. He is well behaved and
academically able. The mother is unable to promptly pay school fees and even
providing food for him. He loves reading comics and telling stories. He is good
in football. He is in class one.
Faith Mongare is
a 5 year old girl in pre-unit class. She is very reserved and doesn’t talk
much. She comes from a very poor household. The father works at the quarry and
earns like one hundred shillings a day which is not enough for the familys
daily food. The mother is a housewife and so providing for the children’s need
is a very hard task. She likes being alone most of the time. In class she is an
average child. She has 3 siblings.
Winnie Mwikali
is a 6 year old girl in pre-unit. When she was brought to the school she used
to cry all day long and the mother said that she had been running away from the
other school due to hunger. Nowadays she doesn’t run away because she receives lunch
in the school. The mother now says that she is better and that she looks
forward to coming to school. She is a very reliable pupil and a hard worker.
Bridgit Nyawira
is a 4 year old in our nursery school class. She likes singing and playing with
toys. She comes from a single mother family and so most of the time the mother
is unable to provide for their daily needs. She is very clever in academics and
likes school very much. She is one of the school uniform beneficiaries because
when we were giving out the uniforms she didn’t have any.
Joseph Irungu is
3 years old and in the baby class. The father died when he was 3 months old
through a road accident. He used to be a matatu driver. The mother is a casual
laborer at the quarry and she requested that we except Joseph from paying
anything so that se can ble able to provide food and shelter for the other 3
siblings and for Joseph too.
Damaris Mbula is
a 7 year old girl in class 1. The mother collects plastic items from the
Dandora dump site and sells them for recycling. She is also asthmatic and
during her seizures she is mostly not in school because she has to be near her
mother. She also has a brother Moses Muasa who is also in our school. Most of
the time, they come to school without having taken breakfast. We also had to
provide them with school shoes because they used to come to school in slippers.
She is good in academics.
Sally Joy
Nyongesa is 8 years old and lives with her uncle and his wife after the parents
died of HIV/AIDS when she was young. The guardians have their own 5 children
and they do not have a constant in come. The uncle is a casual laborer at a
restaurant and the aunt sells vegetables. They live in a mud walled house and
life is very hard for them. She is also a school uniform beneficiary from the
school project.
Valery Achieng
is a 3 year old girl in the baby class. She is very jovial girl and she likes
singing and playing with toys. She is always early to come to school. She loves
the school so much that on Saturdays her mother has to bring her to school so
she can know it’s not a school day.
Petro Munywoki
is 8 years old and in class one. He likes playing with toy cars and is very
brilliant academically. He doesn’t have most of the school requirement items
and so learning is hard for him when he doesn’t even have writing materials. We
hope to be able to provide for him some stationary as soon as we are able to.
Angela Mutheu is
6 years old and from a very poor household. The mother sells bananas and is
unable to pay fees for the four children she has. She likes jumping ropes,
reading and playing handball games. She is good in academics. The parents have
been separated and so she lives with the father’s mother who is her
grandmother.
Those are a few
examples of the children that we have at Happy Day Junior School. Most parents
have been unable to pay up what they owe the school. When Titus and Annelene’s
mother and aunt came to visit the project in early September this year, they
looked at the schools records for the whole year and they found that the
parents were not paying at all. This has brought lots of challenges especially
with the feeding program. We would just wish that the program continues because
some of the kids if they are told to go home for lunch, they will return back
to school without eating any food at home. As I said earlier the main challenge
and the most serious one is our feeding program. The other challenge that we
have is on the school classrooms. We need to renovate the walls and put some
cement and also floors need to be cemented. We only have one toilet and one
bathroom and it’s used by all pupils and staff. We would like to change the
bathroom into another toilet so that we can have two toilets. The septic tank
also needs to be connected to the sewage line before it becomes full and
overflows. This will require money and we hope to accomplish this by the end of
the year so that we can have a better place in January 2014.
We again thank
all Happy Day members and partners for the great support we receive from you
and we are most grateful to all of you.
