Volunteer in Kenya - Mad Crew Blog from Mollie.....

Our summer volunteer project in Kenya kicked off in July and is now in full swing. Volunteers and Mad crew are helping to build extra classrooms onto the existing school. Here are a few more details on what the volunteers are getting up to.

Community Building and Teaching Project - The stunning little village our volunteer and crew are working in is called Ngecho and is about 25 minutes from the nearest town of Gilgil in the stunning Kenyan Rift Valley. This project is situated on a hill overlooking Mt Longonot, Lake Naivasha and the Aberdare mountain range. The views from the school are stunning! The school where our build project is taking place is on the road between Gilgil and Nyharuru. The nearest town is Gilgil, roughly 12km away, which is between Naivasha and Nakuru on the base of the valley. There is not much to the village except the school and surrounding houses. However there are plenty of towns in the area for any basic supplies.

Building - Around 5 years ago Madventurer volunteers built 2 classrooms at Ngecho Primary School but since then the number of children has more than doubled. The objective of this project was to carry out phase 1 of a much needed, new two class block, which will both accommodate the growing amount of pupils attending the school, and replace the unsafe temporary structured classes. This 3 phase project will provide two more good quality classrooms and hence provide more pupils at the school with a far more conducive and enjoyable learning environment, than wooden slat or iron sheet buildings.

Phase 1 was to get started on the foundations work for both classrooms. Thus the work so far has involve a LOT of digging, cement mixing, marking out the site, breaking up stones, sifting sand, and brick laying which are the fun parts of the build. Some of the local community have been very keen to lend a hand, and are very excited about the prospect of volunteer helping with their school build. Without which progress would be at a snails pace. The project is being co-ordinated by your Madventurer crew leader Mollie.

Teaching - Volunteers are getting involved in teaching at Ngecho at primary level. All subjects are available for teaching: English, Maths, Science, Geography. Volunteers can also do smaller private projects which may be more satisfying: health, HIV/AIDS education; conservation, litter education, arts and crafts as well as running a sports day (matches/primary school sports), which is encouraged as it is very useful to the school.

The 425 children that attend Ngecho PS are aged between 6 and 15, approx 207 boys and 216 girls. Although the school is a government school, the government of Kenya do very little in terms of infrastructure development of schools in Kenya. Hence, the school currently has only 4 permanent classrooms for 13 class streams. The remaining classrooms are all made from either wood or roofing sheets. The administration block is of a similarly poor quality. Although the school has been running for 13 years, the government has only built 1 classroom in this time. At this rate, if the school has to rely on government assistance only, they will be waiting 100 years before they have the number of classrooms that they need. With the average Kenyan wage of 1-2 dollars a day, most communities find it difficult to find the funds needed to repair schools and build further facilities which are necessary for a standard learning environment. In this area especially, where agriculture is very difficult due to lack of rainfall, communities must rely on a few cattle to fund an entire family. This makes funding anything other than daily life for a family very difficult.

The community is poor, the arid conditions restricts development as water collection takes many most part of their day and agriculture is limited. Most families depend on a few cows for survival, selling milk in the nearest trading posts for cash or trading for food crops.

Accommodation - Volunteers are staying in a house not too far away from the project site. The headmistress has a house less than 10 minutes walk from the school which she has been kind enough to let us use for the project. The accommodation is basic but will be comfortable. In the main house it has 3 bedrooms, a good sized living room and a kitchen. Breakfast, lunch and dinner is provided by our cook and drinking water is boiled on site. Transport links are very straightforward, with regular minibuses going to Gilgil and Nyaharuru every 10 or so minutes. Taxis and boda boda's (motorbike taxis are also readily available).

Weekend Travel - There are excellent and stunning views, options for independent travel at the weekend and volunteers have been enjoying this immensely. Our project site is close to Lake Nakuru and Lake Naivasha so plenty of opportunities for wildlife trips. There are day or weekend safari's, boat trips on the lakes to see the hippos, wildlife and national parks, Masai village visits, Sheldrick's baby elephant sanctuary, giraffe park to name a few. Nakuru town is large and has many amenities and some home comforts. Naivasha is about an hour or so away and has an excellent reputation as well.

Our closest town is a small settlement called Karunga which is comprised of small local businesses spread each side of the main road. It is a friendly place and most amenities such as sodas, beers, batteries, bread, soap, biscuits, fresh seasonal fruit etc are obtainable here. There is no internet connection but full phone network is present. Madventurer has helped to build several new classrooms at Karunga School, as well as a massive refurbishment of original classrooms. We also built a large water storage tank for the school and local community to collect fresh rain water.

Progress is going great on the build and the foundations of the new classrooms are really starting to take shape. We said a sad goodbye to Samiwel Davies, Jenny Cole, Lydia Williams, Sam Langton, Cassie Hall and Morgan Bird. Thanks for all your help guys on the project you have been fantastic. We still have Deborah, Rosie, Liam to entertain us and new arrivals Emily and Mason, hope you enjoy life in the village.

More overseas crew updates soon……. Cheers Mollie x