Ayuda En Todas Partes: Another Answer to the Desire to Help

Last week, in preparation for Steven Labarakwe's visit to ESHA member schools in the Washington, DC area, we offered information on a nonprofit organization providing school supplies and textbooks in northern Kenya. This week, we offer a second charity to consider for those desiring to provide financial assistance to schools in Steven' Labarakwe's region.

Ayuda En Todas Partes means “help in all directions." A foundation in that name was established in March 2003 to offer concrete help to people in developing countries. The Ayuda En Todas Partes Foundation's primary focus is realizing small-scale construction projects, each using Dutch volunteers over a two- to three-week period, to improve the living conditions of the local community and offer opportunities for building a better future.

In northern Kenya, with Steven Labarakwe as coordinator, Ayuda has focused on the building of primary schools in Samburu villages. In 2007, three classrooms, a teacher's office, a kitchen, toilets, and sports fields were constructed in Ngurunit. Similar projects were constructed in Farakoren in 2008 and Mpagas in 2009. In 2010, Ayuda returned to Ngurunit to add two classrooms and a girls' dormitory. This year, the foundation intends to return to Mpagas to construct additional classrooms. In addition to its building projects, Ayuda has funded mosquito nets for Farakoren families, fees for teacher college for students from the area, an agriculture project at the Ngurunit school, micro-credit for women's groups, and a well in Mpagas.

Ayuda is an officially-registered charity in The Netherlands. For more information about Ayuda, see http://www.ayuda-en-todas-partes.nl/ (in Dutch) or email Rob Ypmea at ayuda-info@ayuda-en-todas-partes.nl.

This information comes from direct email correspondence with Ayuda En Todas Partes at Steven's recommendation. Ayuda is mentioned elsewhere in the ESHA's Kenya Experience blog in "School Visits Prompt School Thoughts," October 10, 2010.

Claudia

Photo: Steven Labarakwe gives ESHA guests a tour of the Mpagas Primary School (Photo credit: Claudia Daggett)

KURA: One Answer to the Desire to Help

As we prepare for Steven Labarakwe's visit to ESHA member schools in the Washington, DC area, it seems important to anticipate the desire to help that is inspired, inevitably, when audiences hear about conditions in northern Kenya. With that in mind, this week we offer information on the Boma Project's new program, KURA -- Kids Uniting for Rural Africa.

KURA's purpose is to effectively improve the quality of education in the Laisamis District by providing textbooks and school supplies to primary and middle schools there. The Boma Project offers some background here:

Laisamis District in northern Kenya is one of the poorest areas in Kenya where 74% to 97% of the people survive on less than $1 per day. According to the Kenya Human Rights Commission: “Schools are insufficient, with enrollment of 25% of children in primary school against a national average of over 99%. Literacy and completion rates are also the lowest in the country."

The vast majority of the schools have no textbooks or supplies. A typical classroom, if there is a building, would have desks and chairs as well as a few pencils and pieces of paper that the children all share.

Photo: One of the better classrooms in Laisamis. Children share desks, textbooks and pencils. (Courtesy of the Boma Project; Kathleen Colson, photographer)
















Photo: A classroom under the tree in Lengima, northern Kenya. This school has no supplies or textbooks. (Courtesy of the Boma Project; David duChemin, photographer)

A typical KURA package, at $500, includes:

• pens
• pencils
• pencil sharpeners
• geometrical sets
• storybooks
• rulers
• graph books
• English dictionary
• Swahili dictionary
• composition books
• sanitary towels
• exercise books – ruled, squared and drawing
• crayons

A package of 35 textbooks for a grade 1 and 2 classroom, at $750, provides learning materials in English, Swahili, math and science.

Gifts to KURA are tax-deductible through Boma, which is a U.S.-based 501(c)3 organization. For more information about the Boma Project, see www.bomaproject.org or contact Kathleen Colson, Executive Director, at (802)236-3018 or kathleen@bomaproject.org.

Other ESHA's Kenya Experience blog posts about the Boma Project include: For the Answers, Look to Those in Need, November 7, 2010, and Prosperity with Dignity, November 14, 2010.

Claudia

We are pleased to announce...

A Meeting with Steven Labarakwe
Educator from Northern Kenya

Thursday, April 7, 2011
6:00-7:00 p.m.
Norwood School
8821 River Road
Bethesda, MD
RSVP by March 31 to info@elementaryschoolheads.org

We hope ESHA members and their school-leadership colleagues will join us to meet Steven Labarakwe, education officer for the Laisamis District in northern Kenya, and participate in discussion about global citizenship and meaningful global partnerships at the elementary school level. This event includes leaders from the six DC-area ESHA-member schools that Steven will be visiting and all other ESHA members interested in participating.

Claudia

Illustration: Nina, Cambridge Montessori School (MA)

Invitation Accepted, Visit Preparations Begin

United States visa awarded, Steven Labarakwe, educator from northern Kenya, begins to prepare to visit and make presentations next month to ESHA-member schools in the greater Washington, DC area.

On our side of the globe, host-school leaders will come together by conference call this week to outline their hopes for these visits. I look forward to the discussion about how to make this experience for our elementary school students one that is meaningful and promotes a sense of curiosity about the world and its cultural diversity.

Claudia

Photo: Steven Labarakwe shares pen pal mural, Mpagas, Kenya (Claudia Daggett)