Project Pamoja! Build the school of tomorrow

We know that “when parents are involved in their children’s education, children are more engaged with their school work, stay in school longer, and
achieve better learning outcomes. This also translates into longer-term economic and social benefits” www.globalpartnership.org

The VA Academy staff are continuously in contact with the parents and guardians of our students to encourage their involvement. For this purpose, we have created spaces on the school grounds to facilitate class meetings and the essential and beneficial teacher-parent individual conversations.

IMPROVEMENTS TO OUR FACILITIES

For our students to thrive, we have completed the preparation and improved existing VA spaces including:

• the completion of the perimeter wall with the addition of black boards, which are used by the students for drawing and to highlight important topics being studied.
• the completion of the refurbishment area at the back of the school, which is now used for assembly and parents’ meetings.

We can’t stress enough the importance of involving the parents and the local community in our activities and in the education of their children. Only with their full engagement and support we can achieve our mission of raising the standards of education in Kibera and give our students some real chances for a better future. To have some quiet, dedicated spaces to meet the parents become instrumental to the parents’ engagement.

END OF THE ACADEMIC YEAR

Kenya has been through the national election process which concluded just a few days ago. The main side effect of any electoral campaign is the slowing down of all the public and administrative activities, with an impact on the registration and planning process for Volunteers Foundation Academy. From the information we received from the field, we are confident our applications will now continue with finalisation of the required processes and we will soon be able to start the building activities. Our project partners Betts Townsend and Taylor are diligently following up on the progress.  

We are planning the next building activities to carry out. Obviously, we will have to balance the immediate requirements with the long-term redevelopment master plan to make sure everything we do now, while we raise the funds required, can be reused, and will not affect the final building layout.

One of the priorities highlighted in a recent local authority’s site survey, is to build some additional toilets to maintain the minimum students/facilities ratio. We are looking into this installation with our construction partners and planning the works in December, when school is closed for the end of year holiday.  

Please share our stories with your friends and encourage them to get in touch so we can
explain the life-changing impact VF makes. Follow us on social media and join our events.

Imagine how we could scale up together. Help us complete Project Pamoja.
Be Project Pamoja!

Until the next report from the field,
Monica Dan, Founder @VF

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• Project Pamoja Update 3 (PDF)