Return vulnerable children from Kibera to School

We've reached the end of the school year in Kenya, and another group of children have completed their time in the School Transition Programme and will join our free Fountains of Hope Primary School in January. It is a moment to celebrate how far they have come.

Meanwhile, our first ever group of Class 8 children have successfully completed their end of primary school exams and have performed so well. The average marks were a full 20 points higher than last year's results when we were supporting children in other schools. 

So Class 8 will move on to secondary school and make room for the new children entering the school from our School Transition Programme. This in turn makes space for new children to join the School Transition Programme, the admissions process will begin in January.

As we have evaluated the project at the end of the year, we've identified some areas that need improvement and we'll be trying out some new things in the new year as we strive to ensure each child gets the best care and opportunities. 

For example, we've learned that when we admit children towards the end of the year, they don't have enough time to catch up on the education they have missed fast enough to join school the following January, but remaining in Transition for another year can be demotivating. For this reason, we'll start admitting more children earlier in the year in the hope that the whole group will move on to school together.

We want to put a special focus on raising literacy levels too as many children really struggle with their reading and this holds them back in every subject. We want to start as early as possible to work on improving literacy and we're excited about the plans we have to achieve this.

Thank you so much for supporting our work this year!