I'd like to donate 50 textbooks to Minawi primary school in Kenya to celebrate my 50th birthday. Here's is some information about the school, written by Diana Chipo who met Richard on a work camp in Kenya in 1993. She works for Mafanikio.

MAFANIKIO COMMUNITY BASED ORGANIZATION

MIWANI PRIMARY SCHOOL

Background information

Miwani Primary School is in the north coast, situated in Miwani village, Ganda location in Malindi Constituency. It is a community school, run by Maziwani Primary School with the full support of both the community and the local government. Miwani has 158 pupils with a team of 9 teachers who work under very difficult and appalling situation in order to educate these kids. The village has a population of about 1000 people respectively.

The school was established in 2011 following the need to start another school given that the population had increased and the other public schools were a distance away. As it were, a few structures were set up with the help of local government and the school began running.

The school is in the heart of the village and enjoys serenity and tranquility of nature. However, most community members lack education thus is faced with a lot of economic hardships and poverty as a result. Therefore, the support extended to the school remains minimal considering the life challenges that they undergo. In order to seal this gap, Mafanikio has partnered with the school, local government and the county government in order to provide intervention measures to improve the school infrastructure, provision of learning instructional materials, international volunteer services and school feeding program as a way of providing a conducive learning environment.

Student’s background

Most of the students in this school come from homes which practice subsistence farming. Besides, they are also caught up in witchcraft beliefs that scare some pupils and parents from taking their children to school.

Since its conception 6 years ago, the children have been sitting and writing on the floor because they did not have desks. This subjected them to a lot of bullying from other children’s who attended other schools which are more than 6 kilometers away from their homes.

With the desks in place, the next phase to provide text books to enable them learn and acquire knowledge just as other children. Being underprivileged has led to so many self esteem issues to an extent some think that they are not good enough.

Project description

The project has short and long term goals that shall ensure that it stands on its own after a span of two years. Some of the goals include;

Teaching Mathematics, English & Social studies

Sports & games activities

Community meetings participation

Community development

Identifying weak students and focusing on their potential strengths

Assisting the head teacher in admin work

The short term goals include;

Providing text books and other learning materials

Providing furniture to the teachers (tables & chairs)

Construction of 3 Toilets

The long term goals;

Classrooms

Water harvesting to provide the school with water

The government has pledged to construct two classrooms in aid of school development.