Send 400 Kisii Orphans to schools in Kenya

Dear Partners,

Since the initiation of this programme in schools in Kisii District, Kenya with the aim of increasing and retention of orphans to school education, there has been increased enrollment in primary schools in Kisii District particularly the Early Childhood Development pupils (ECD(.Reports from the schools administrations receiving the porridge support ( currently the nutritional porridge support is being implemented in 3 schools i.e Kiabiraa, Nyangorora and Kiangoso primary schools) have shown that the number of enrollment has increased by 12% on the ECD pupils alone. This has been contributed by free nutritional porridge which the children receive in school, most of the family households in the region do not provide porridge to children, children most often receive 3 basic meals a day i.e breakfast, lunch and dinner.

The  intention of the porridge in school  is not only to act as a source of nutritional food to growing children but also to encourage children to stay in school. As the community may perceive otherwise subconsciously their children are coming to school to drink porridge only to acquire education in the long term.During the month of May we started this programme in 2 initial schools in the rural Kisii District, these schools are Nyangorora and Kiabiraa primary schools. During the first week the number of ECD pupils remained the same but during the second week absentees pupils began showing up in school. By the end of the month the ECD classes in both schools recorded 98% of attendance of ECD pupils.This encouraged us and as started earlier during the start of this programme the intention was to target 12 schools in the rural Kisii District which had been identified as having minimum number of children attending ECD classes. The month of June we approached Kiangoso Primary school about the programme and they immediately accepted. Kiangoso Primary school has previously been a beneficiary of Global Giving partners contributions towards keeping orphans in schools and support to girls.

Currently the programme is being implemented in the 3 primary schools where Kiangoso primary school has 46 ECD pupils, Kiabiraa primary school has 31 ECD pupils and Nyangorora primary school has 43 ECD pupils. We supply the school with 50KG nutritional porridge flour every month to the schools and also train parents, ECD teachers on nutrition during parents day in the school. The success of this programme in only 3 months has prompted other primary schools in the rural Kisii district to approach us for the assistance. Your contributions together with contributions from individual donors is enabling us sending children in school, due to the funds availability we have decided together with the school administration of reduced monthly quantity of Nutritional porridge in case of insufficient funds. But so far your generous contribution is keeping us going and assisting the children access education.

Reports on schools enrollment in the 3 primary schools together with the photos will be send to you soon. Thank you for your cooperation.

Most of the already supported children under this project are attending the Early Childhood Development (ECD) classes, these children have been able to attend classes through your contribution that has been paid in fees. Through feedback from the ECD teachers, it was found out that even though the orphans had been provided with fees and books still most of them were not concentrating in classes due to hunger. We found out that most of this orphans  were not taking meals in morning when coming to school and because the school did not offer porridge, the orphans had to wait till noon to have lunch with the rest of the children. This not only reduced their concentration in schools but also hindered their development physically and psychologically.

We have initiated a programme in 2 schools that we had previously provided uniforms to orphans i.e Nyangorora and Kiabiraa. Through discussions with parents and teachers of the schools we decided to be offering nutritional porridge flour to the school every month to cater for the whole ECD children and at the same time reaching the orphans. The school will be preparing porridge for the ECD children. This initiative will increase enrollment and decrease dropout of orphans in the school while also improving the nutritional status of the children.

Currently the two schools are opening after going for a the school holiday and we expect to start providing the flour (50 Kg bag of Nutritional porridge flour) to the two schools each every month, as we continue reaching other orphans in other schools we will be providing the flour to them too.