Jambo Happy Day family.
We hope you are all doing great.
We at happy day are well and back to school for the third
and last term
of 2024 academic year. We hope this term is
not disrupted as last term
was. This term is going for 9 weeks
only making it the shortest academic
term .
Last term was a very hard term for all of us in Kenya.
First it
was the floods which saw many households affected.
At Happy day we
had families which were very much affected
by the floods. Houses were
swept away by the waters with every
belongings carried away too. Uniforms
and books were not
spared either. This really affected the families
because they had
to relocate with most of them not having an alternative place
to go.
Some were hosted by neighbors and friends while some had to go
to upcountry to seek for shelter.
After the floods came the political unrests caused by the high cost
of
living in Kenya. Life has become very hard with most families
not able to have
their daily meals. Taxes are so high that people have
had to close their
small businesses.
Most parents at Happy day are casual laborers and due to the closure of
small businesses and exit of many companies they were rendered jobless
with no
sources of income.
It has really taken a toll on us at Happy day because we too are not
able
to offer much help especially on the feeding program. We continued with
the feeding program with just a few parents being able to give the 20
shillings daily for food. It is such a hard task to budget for the food daily
because we also have to give food to the most vulnerable who we are
sure cannot
afford the 20 shillings. We also have to feed those affected
by the calamities and this has been a hard task to handle. However little
we cook we have taught our kids to be a brother's keeper. They have
learnt to share. At one time we had so little money that a teacher had to
cook at her home and bring food to the kids. Another time I had to
carry
rice and maize flour from home to enable us to feed the kids.
We hope and pray that this term we get some help on the feeding
program.
Last term we didn't have any major extra curriculum activities due to
the
above mentioned issues. We had planned to take our kids once every
term
for a fun day but last term was an exception. This term we hope to
take
them for the fun day at a day with we have not yet gotten the time and
date.
The government announced a schools compliance inspection
from last
term. As at closing we were not yet inspected but the
ministry officials
were in our zone. We expect them to pop in
any day now that we are back. They
are checking to see that all
schools are a safe space for children and staff,
they are also checking
if all schools are compliant and with the required
teacher pupil ratio.
Another requirement is the relevant licenses and if
the teachers are
tsc registered. The cooks are also required to have a
health and food
handlers certificate too.
We are a safe space. Our teachers are compliant. We have the 2
most important licenses ( kra and ministry). We have 2 toilets
which is a good
number because our population is not big. We have
a good number of
teaching staff and so our classes are not congested.
Our kitchen is in a good
condition and well equipped. Our class
rooms are upto
standard. We have enough desks. We have a 5000
liters water
storage tank.
(the above makes us ready for the inspection).
The paint on our walls has fallen of and that's the only problem that
the inspectors might pin us on. We hope to have them painted (subject to
availability of funds)
We will keep you updated on the inspection and any other
happenings.
We are very grateful to the happy day friends and families for the
great
support we receive. Financial, advices, inputs, sacrifices and
all kindness
shown to any of us including the children doesn't go
unnoticed.
We say Asante sana
to you all.
