Empowering 600 Girls Through Education in Kenya

With your support and other caring donors, Village Impact is tackling our most ambitious project yet—constructing and resourcing a 600-seat, all-girls high school in Mai Mahiu, Kenya. 

There's been significant progress in the project since our last report, and we're thrilled to share an update with you today! 

• Construction of the two-story school is well underway. The first block of 6 classrooms was completed in April, and we opened the doors and welcome students for the first term of the Kenya school year, which began in May. We welcomed one hundred Form 1 students (Grade 9) and 10 Form 2 students as the inaugural cohort. The school administration had decided only to allow Form 1 registration as part of the phase-in plan for the school. Still, parents came daily asking for space for a Form 2 class, so the Acting Principal opened up spots to accommodate these eager students. As the school is in the process of being fully registered with the Government, which will provide the teaching staff, the girls' school fees have gone to hire three community teachers to cover teaching duties in the interim. The governmental registration will be processed as soon as the final construction is completed. We should again note, that 60% of the construction crew are women, and some are moms of students who are in the inaugural Grade 9 class! 

• A dedicated Psychosocial Counsellor was hired for the school and is currently in the onboarding process. We're thrilled to welcome Connie Kamonya to the Village Impact team. Connie is passionate about teens and has worked with students on mentorship and behavioural change programs in various schools. Connie was introduced to the girls and will assume full-time duties at the school in July. 

• A borehole well was successfully drilled, and we installed a three-tank storage system to provide a clean, safe water source for the girl's school, the primary school's population of 3,200 students, and the surrounding community. The current challenge is that the water from the well ranges in temperature from 62-80° Celsius. Because of this heat, the first water pump installation failed and finding a pumping system that can accommodate both the extreme heat and pumping capacity has proven difficult. However, we reached out to Well Aware, a US-based water-focused NGO with projects also in the Rift Valley, and with their help, we are confident we will have a solution in hand shortly.  

Check out our second VIDEO UPDATE on the project HERE

Thank you again so much! None of this would be possible without your generous support. We look forward to the next update and hope you do too!