Bringing hope to Ndurutu Primary School

The other day i met someone at the weekend market, someone who boldly and bluntly asked me if  there are schools in 'Africa' and if i attended school there or if i schooled abroad etc etc...the usual strings of questions.
I answered yes there are schools in Africa or rather in the part of 'Africa' that i come from, you see am Kenyan so i can only talk about Kenya. In the end i reffered the lady to this blog so she could learn the work that we do, and show her where I and my team in Kenya went to school....i hope she is reading this.

Ndurutu Primary School- my former school

Anyway, back to our post of the day.
The coffee from Ndurutu Wet mill arrived in Germany and Me and my partner Nicole are busy 'knocking doors' selling this coffee so we can continue with the next phase of our projects.

The gang in Kenya from Kedovo are busy implementing and facilitating the planned sustainable projects from the sale of this coffee.Today they spent the whole morning at Ndurutu Primary school, mentoring and bringing hope to the children of our coffee producers from Ndurutu Wet Mill.

Davie & George of Kedovo Kenya arriving at Ndurutu Primary

Ndurutu Primary is located in Kiganjo, Nyeri county approximately 150 kms from Nairobi on the Nairobi- Nanyuki- Isiolo road.The school has currently 166 pupils, who are all from the coffee farming community.
The school is government owned and underfunded esp in terms of teachers,learning materials, schools buildings among other amenities.The school infrastructure has drastically deteriorated, including classroom blocks, toilets, writting boards etc and as a result teachers are less inclined to stay and invest in the school.

The morale of the children is low, as they do not see a bright future ahead, most of them lack the basic amenities.....and this is where now the Kedovo-Chania Coffee gang comes in.Our work is to bring hope to communities and show them that everything is possible. We connect communities and form sustainable partneships that lead to development.What mainly lies in our hearts especially is that the children of our coffee producers, can have access to education and learn in conducive environment, and give them the hope of when tomorrow comes... we want our coffee producing communities to start rebuilding their lives and head towards the journey of self- reliance.
Today the gang distributed uniforms and writting books to some of the pupils.

  

You see Uniforms are very important in the Kenyan schooling system. Its mandatory for each child to wear school uniform in Kenya's public schools.Attending school without uniform is a punishable offence that can lead even to the pupil being expeled from school.

School uniforms In Kenya is not even an issue that is up for debate, its believed that they enhance a sense of visual equality and decrease distractions from schoolwork when at school, as well as make students easy to identify.

Many parents in the community can still not afford to buy school uniforms, and thats why we have the Kedovo school uniform program, where we donate the uniforms to the children. As we all in Kedovo and Chania Coffee grew up there, we do not need any studies or researches to understand the impact of distributing school uniforms to children in Kenya. 

I myself personally remember at one time when i was in class 5 and my uniform was torn and had this big patch that my mother had sewn overnight with a white thread ( the uniform was green- so you can imagine the contrast :o)....i was so embrassed in school because the other children who maybe had 'better off' parents would make fun of the patchwork, i cried so much that i didnt attend the school the next day, and my mother had to sell our only remaining goat; Chifi to buy me a school uniform.Well i got an uniform but that meant my younger brother had to go for months without the goat milk- he forgave me when he grew up ;)

Many children feel stigmatized by the failure to wear an uniform and they maybe even be reprimanded by the teachers.

So basically we have the experience and we know and believe that distributing uniforms reduces school absenteesim by a big percentage.The effects are actually quite larger for pupils who did not previously own a uniform or had a torn one.

We know very well  that reducing the cost of schooling by providing uniforms among other inputs increases school participation and our plan is to encourage these children so that we can stem up their feelings and overall perfomance.

                                                   

Many people might not understand the reasons for school uniforms in Kenya but Equality is promoted through school uniforms. In a country where there is a wide gap between the rich and the poor there is a dire need to ensure that there is a sense of equality in as many areas as possible. It is especially important for young people to learn that in as much as they come from various backgrounds, be it economic, religious or ethnic, they are equal in their goals and purpose in the academic institutions. School uniforms do this rather effectively in that they cost the roughly the same amount and they are all alike, thus bringing out a sense of equality among the students regardless of where they come from.

We also supported the school with books. Many people might ask why books? Many social- economic factors such as the inability to afford text books and writting books often lead to poor or dismal performance even for bright and determined students meaning that their academic career will end prematurely. The Kedovo project of Education for sustainable development ensures that we provide books and offer support to the children of our coffee producers with the goal of enabling them to perform better in school and in so doing we open up more academic opportunities for them, opportunities that are beyond the primary school levels, opportunities to see the world.....opportunities to dare to dream...

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The Kedovo gang doing their 'slow motion' distributing books in Ndurutu Primary their former school

In plan is to set up a small Library within the school where the pupils can be borrowing text books and story books through a systematic model.

In the end, the Kedovo team had a long talk with the pupils of Ndurutu Primary School, they gave talks about our past, about us all growing up in the village, about us 'scurring' with open jerricans on the gullies of River Chania, about us and our dreams and where we are headed as a community.....about us and the journey of our village.
The names of the Kedovo team are on the 'wall of fame' at the school, our names hang there to remind the kids that there is hope in the village, and today the kids could see for sure there was hope....
They told the kids the stories of a far away land where our Partners Nicole and Heinz come from, and the kids in a far away village , the village of my birth were so thankful to these two amazing people who have and continue supporting our work.

Davie telling the story about Nicole and where she lives

And they listened and had hope......a hope of a better tomorrow

To my Partner, Sandtorkai Handel Papenhagen...thankyou for giving us a chance to tell the story of a far away village in the slopes of Mt. Kenya, thankyou for giving us a chance to tell Our Story Our Way.....

To the Roasters in Germany, who have been whole heartedly supporting our work, our sincere gratitude, remember our work is not finished, we have classrooms to build, Libraries to set up, more uniforms, books, learning materials to distribute....lets make it happen.
The Ndurutu story is a story worth remembering and repeating....help us tell the story.

We are currently offerring the Ndurutu coffee, late harvest 2013/ 2014 F.O.T Bremen- transport to other destination within Germany arrangable at a cost. 

Please contact Nicole Boedtger or Soni Schneidewind for samples, price quoatations and contracting.

The journey continues.....