Monday 3 May 2010

Update from Moses - May 2010

Hello everyone! I have today received an update from Moses in the form of the school newsletter & I thought I would post it here for all of you who remain interested. As you will see from the bottom of the newsletter, they are still in need of quite a few contributions/donations (not just financial aid, but skills!) so feel free to get in touch if you think you can help in any way. Or, if you have any fundraising ideas for me, please let me know!!! And last but not least, if you can spare any time at all ... please go & visit the village & the wonderful Owino family. You will never regret it, I promise.

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Volume 1 - May 2010

At the start of school year 2010, and after one full year of our Volunteer Project, we would like to thank all the wonderful people who have come here to us to offer us their love, kindness, expertise and toil to improve the lives of our children and teachers. You have given us contact with the huge world outside our tiny community in a way that we would never have thought possible. We never dreamed we would meet people from all over the world. We never dreamed that we would have the opportunity to learn so much about other cultures. We never dreamed that there were so many people who wanted to help us. Now we know that there are thousands of people travelling the world to help poor people like ourselves so that we can lead full, healthy and happy lives. You have all been a great blessing and because you live in our hearts and memories, even though you have gone home you are still here.

We have just received the exam results for our P7 leavers. A simple way of expressing it is that the results are 10% better than the previous year. We are the only school in the sub county to have pupils who have achieved Division 1 results, which two of our children passed in division in this division, 25 in division two,12 in division three, 4 in division four and only 4 failed. So not only has the previous decline been halted, but standards have been raised! We are overjoyed! We know that the reason is because of our volunteers who have improved everyone's morale and provided things for teachers to enable them to teach better and water by madam Gemma with her team, food (lunch for the student's by the six teachers from south London University who initiated it and Madam Susannah continued this programme up to now as we talk to you and girl's sanitation provisions that make the children more able to attend school and learn effectively.

For those who came before and after the construction of our new modern kitchen at Kyabirwa primary school, we are happy to inform you that this kitchen was officially opened and we're now using it. Also, Madam Susannah and St John's primary school in Bristol, parents, staff and the children have funded a mug of porridge for each of the 1000 children until July 4th of this year.
The whole staff of Kyabirwa expresses its gratitude to every one of you there for putting us on the world map as per the above mentioned achievements through your efforts.

More news is that the Eco-san latrine that was donated to us by James and Maria, is also now in use by the school.

We want to thank very much our beloved volunteer teachers that they still have us in their minds. Madam Amy Riley and Madam Louise Bowen ran the marathons to raise funds to continue the porridge provision and the wages for both our cook and the night watch man for the rest of the year.

David Harris used his expertise to construct us a staff room, as well as making shutters for all the class room windows that didn’t have them. He also bought us the table and chairs for our new staff room which is helping us enormously as we now have flat surfaces on which to mark all the exercise books as well as use at lunchtime when we have a meal. He also gave us a bed and mattress to make a sick bay for when children are poorly.

We also received contributions to the music department last year when we were given instruments from Madam Neffy & friends, and costumes from Madam Jessica.

Also 100 copies of English books for p.6. This year we have so far managed to get 48 copies of junior Dictionaries for the current p.7 class and some athletics equipment has also been acquired.

If we have accidentally omitted one of our friends and their contribution, we hope you will not be offended or think that we do not value what you have done for us. We are overflowing with gratitude to everyone who has come to us so far and for each and everyone’s contribution.

We will keep you updated of future progress at the end of the next term in about 3 months’ time. We would be grateful if you would email this newsletter to anyone you know, who may be looking for a volunteer opportunity because there is now so much competition from other projects which can afford to advertise widely, that it may help the school to maintain a small regular flow of volunteers.

Our main targets for this year are as below:-

· Completion of the teacher's accommodation of which only the footings are currently built.
· Refurbishment of the current school buildings.
· Buying Science equipment and materials as we have virtually none and science exam results are not the best
· Buying more text books, to improve on the academic standards.
· Buying the athletics field equipment, i.e. javelin, discus, and shot put
· Power connection to the school as the wiring was already done in two rooms by Mr. Liam
· Improving the agricultural sector i.e. practicing this in our school garden
· Continuing the phonics classes. The books were brought by Madam Susannah in earlier Feb this year. Mr. Martin, Madam Gillian, Mr. Dan and Mr. Charlie who have been here with us for this first term have done a tremendous job using these phonics materials with the p.7-p.5 classes.

Our target list looks to be very long, but as we know, all this can't be done at once. However, we shall get there one step at a time with the help of all our friends from the developed world, including those we have not yet met and who have not yet come to us!

"God bless you all and may your futures, and those of everyone you love, be filled with love, health and happiness".

Robinah Musakira (Head Mistress and Project Director), Moses Owino (Project Manager) and all the teachers, children, PTA, our Cook and our Night Watchman (the cook and watchman didn't have jobs before the project) thank you with all our hearts.

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