Monthly Report June

Written by Teacher Margaret

Jambo Happy day friends and family.

We hope this finds you well. We are also doing well too despite the had times experienced worldwide due to the pandemic. As we all know, many families have lost their source of income and life has become very hard for all. Almost all happy day families are now unable to earn any form of income for their families and I have to report that this is not going away any day soon. We have increased number of new Covid 19 cases especially in the last few days. The Kenyan government has began mass testing and so they are reporting very many cases. This shows that if the trend continues schools will not open any day soon.
We have been able to distribute foodstuffs, soaps and tissues twice a month since the closure of schools... We are very grateful to you all who have made it possible. We have also distributed face masks to our families.

Children who are able to access the internet are e-learning while those from the slums and other unprivileged families have to sit until schools reopen. Our kids fall in the waiting category. Anyway, we shall overcome. Non of happy day families has access to a computer and those who have phones they still can't afford to buy the data bundles to download the school work given. Some elite schools are learning via zoom meeting but I don't think that our kids know what that is.

This week I was working on the hand washing water cans like the one in the above picture and we have around 20 of them in use. The rest of them will be distributed as soon as taps have been fixed. Again thanks to Annelene's mom who made it possible. May you all be blessed.

We made liquid soap for our families. Each family gets a litre of the soap for hand washing. This is a measure of complying with the government guidelines on hand washing and also for personal hygiene. The local administration is also working towards giving some foodstuffs to residents of the slum areas and I am hopeful that our happy day families will benefit from the project too. This will go a long way in helping the families to feed their kids. I am engaging the local administration so that they can use our school as a point of collection for the neighborhood so that our families can be sure of receiving
Due to the effects of the pandemic and the closure of schools, our kids have to endure hunger when the food we give gets finished. When schools are on, our kids eat at school and we have not had cases of malnutrition. Right now some of them are already showing signs of being malnourished. This is due to low income or no income for their parents. The government has put restrictions as a way of lowering the curve and the impact is very huge especially to the most poor.
We hope to add on our food supplies, so that we can provide more food for the families. We have set up a budget and hope to distribute  this twice a month to 50 families:

Budget per family 

Sugar..... 1kg .......... 110 

Salt...... 500gm..........30 

Beans 1 kg ............. 120 

Rice.....1kg............. 100
Maize flour 4kg...... 240

Wheat flour 2 kg...... 130

Cooking oil 1 litre.... 100

Bar soap 1kg.............130

2 tissue paper............. 40

Porridge flour 1kg.... 100

Greengrams 1kg...    .140

TOTAL.... 1240 ksh


OUR MAY/ JUNE BUDGET IS AS FOLLOWS. 

Salaries.... 80000 

Insurance...18000 

Water....... 3000 

TOTAL..... 101,000

Monthly Report May

Written by Teacher Margaret

Jambo y'all.

We have come to the end of April which would have seen us open for the second term of this year. As we all know, schools were closed indefinitely due to Covid - 19. Our government announced 31 more days for the schools to remain closed. I have been able to visit happy day families ( observing the set down rules) during this pandemic and I can report that life is hard. Most of the happy day families ( almost all of them) live in abject poverty and cannot therefore afford essential items and especially now that we are required to stay at home to stop the virus. Our families are affected greatly because our parents live on daily wages of below a dollar per day. Right now they don't have any form of income and so what I have witness is far more worse than what I knew. Families are going for a day or two without food until when a well-wisher like you and me appears to give some help. We at happy day are blessed to have gotten assistance in form of food, soap and tissue paper from our friends, family and supporters in Norway. May each one of you be blessed . I am still waiting for some face masks from a friend of mine so that I can distribute to the families. During my visits I found out that most of them don't have this very important items which happens to be a requirement. If one is found without a mask they get arrested by the police and are taken for forced quarantine.

The government requires that if a person, a group or an organization wants to distribute food they go through the area administration. Am happy to report that we have experienced great cooperation from our local authority. They promised to always give us security when we have items to give to our families.
We are very grateful that we at least helped a family put food on the table. It's much an eye opener to me that people are suffering out here.

We don't have much about academics to report about because our government has set up online learning for students and they have tv programs too. Our happy day families don't have access to any form of internet and most of them don't have a tv set. Those who have a tv cannot afford to pay for the monthly subscription so that their kids can study via the kids channel. So we have to wait until schools open for our kids to learn.


OUR APRIL/ MAY BUDGET IS AS FOLLOWS ::::
salaries.....    80000
Insurance...  18000
Water.....        1500
Food.......       50000
TOTAL......  149500

Extra salary due to hard times.....40000

Total.........189500

Monthly Report April

Written by Teacher Margaret

Jambo y'all. Trust you are well and keeping safe during this period of Corona virus. We too are trying to keep safe and to stay home despite the tough economic times. As you all know most of our families live from hand to mouth and cannot afford to buy food in large quantities. So we are hardest hit when it comes to staying at home. Recently as I was giving food and soap to families, I could see the fear in the eyes of the parents. Fear of how they would survive this period when the kids are not in school. The uncertainty caused by this virus is very evidently witnessed. As we all know, our happy day kids mostly depends on the food we give in school and do right now parents are overwhelmed by the stay at home situation. Most of our parents earn less than a dollar a day and currently working isn't allowed ( they are labourers in people's houses and a nearby quarry.) It is so hard for the families especially now that Kenya is reporting new cases every day and we might soon have a total lockdown. My prayer is that a cure or maybe a vaccine is soon discovered. If the cases escalate then we might be hit hard. We don't know when schools will be reopened but we just have to wait and pray.

We are grateful that we were able to give some food to our families. May each one of you who made it possible be blessed always.
Our March / April budget is as follows:

Salaries.... 75,000

Insurance...14,000
Water...........3,000
TOTAL......92000
-.Pre paid salaries 38000
= 54,000


It is my humble request that if possible we get the usual food money so that we can give more food, soap and tissues to our happy day families. Our monthly food costs approximately 50,000.
We will appreciate. 

Thanks and take care of yourselves.
Much love from us

Innblikk

En videosnutt fra livet på Happy Day Junior School

Monthly Report March

Written by Teacher Margaret

Jambo y'all. Trust you are all well and good. We at Happy Day are also doing well and we are grateful to you all for the continued support. 

We are at the middle of the first term and 2020. Much changes have happened with the change of system in the education ministry. We are copping well though the system is a bit demanding on all parties including teacher's, children, parents and the community at large. We have improvised most of the learning materials and teaching aid for our children to learn better. We have also had to buy some but this has proved to be hard especially on the parents. This month of much we require every parent to buy a scrap book for their child @ 500 kshs. We know most of them will not be able to afford but we are optimistic that they will try since we have let them know that the system involves a lot of bought items which the school can't always provide.  

Our staff are doing well and I am very grateful to them for their dedication to the children at Happy Day.

Our FEB / MARCH budget is as follows:
SALARIES...... 75000
CHAI.............24000
FOOD......26000
FUEL.......2400
WATER....... 3000
STATIONARY..... 10000

TOTAL........ 140,400


SPECIAL REQUEST FOR SCRAPBOOKS....
We assume that around 20 parents will afford to buy the books for their children. We request that the school can buy for the remaining 30 children because they have to have them . This will cost us

30 books @ 500 = 15000.
This is a kind request.

Have a blessed new month and be blessed always for your continued support to the happy day family

Bildedryss

Monthly Report February

Written by Teacher Margaret

Jambo you all. I hope you are all doing well and I hope you started the year 2020 well. We at Happy Day Junior school started at a higher note after the long Christmas holidays. The first term is ongoing and it's all systems go with the new competence based curriculum of education. We are trying our best to cope with the new changes. The system is a very busy one for all including parents, teachers and the children. All must participate in the day to day learning. Most of the learning in this system involves observation from the parents and the teachers. It's mostly about handwork. Practicals are more than the theory part of learning. Tangible items and things are used in almost all the activities. We have to improvise most of the learning and teaching materials from locally available things though we also have to buy some. We will keep on updating the happenings of the system as time goes by.

Most of the kids are back and we always do new admission or enrollment every beginning of first term for the playgroup class. This are children ages between 3 - 4 years. In the current system this class is mostly learning through singing, playing, and touching. We have also done a few new admission for the other classes. We have 48 children as of Friday 31st January 2020.


Our JAN / FEB budget is as follows:

SALARIES...... 75000 

CHAI.............24000 

FOOD......26000 

FUEL.......2400 

WATER....... 3000 

LEARNING AND TEACHING MATERIALS....... 15000 

TOTAL........ 145,400