Educating 70+ children in Mathare Slum Kenya

Since the last report civil society in Kenya has started to returned to more normal levels of activities. There are still restrictions and most people are aware of not gathering in large groups. However classes at St. Benedicts SoH have been gathering together since Christmas and the Classes that are stting exams in March are working together with there revision time. There have been some online lessons delivered by volunteer experienced teachers here in the UK in the Sciences and Maths for at least 1 1/2 hrs each week.Pupils have been responding well and expectations are high.ChallengeAid is ensuring that the is a good stock of past papers over the past 5 years with questions & marking scheme answers in those areas.

Less time has been spent on reacreational activities with games taking a back seat until everything returns to normal but certainly chess continues at full staeam with the children of all ages cultivating a real passion and desire to achieve. Before the pandemic ChallengeAid had won two national TV competitions for Informal Slum Settlement children winning the top two spots in two consecutive years. The copmpetition was not held last year but there is a real expectation that that we can do well again this year.

Normality is resuming also with all the Supervisors,including those from St. Benedicts attending Supervisor meetings and getting back into a routine and unified approach in which all the children can get back to the "new normality".