Hope Orphan Pre-School Youth Group (HOPSYG)

End of School Year 2012

December Update

Children outside school saying goodbye to our visitors from Direct Aid For Africa. November 22nd 2012

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A moment of reflection- Humble Beginnings!

Find Our First Children- This photo was taken in February 2009 and these were our first KG3 class. These were humble

beginnings and you can see that we started our school in a tin-shack, at the back of Fred's house. Try to spot the above children

in the following pages (pages identified below) and see how they've grown and changed in these four years.

Above Photo- Left to right: Swabrina (p.13), Salim (p.12), Lilian (back row- p.14, 15), Zuma (p. 16, 17), Kahindi (back row), Rama (front row, navy shorts - p. 16, 17), Mwaka

(p.17), Saumu (yellow t-shirt).

Unfortunately, like most adolescent girls living in poverty in sub-Saharan Africa, they lose the motivation and support to continue school. Saumu (above) dropped out of her sponsored primary school in 2010. Due to this re-occurring trend we make extra efforts to support the girl child. Again, we are now facing

the same problem with Lilian.

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A moment of reflection

“After working on a school spreadsheet, we noticed an interesting statistic. We have 43 kids in pre-school and 23 sponsored in

primary school. Since we started in Oct 2008, we calculated that Hope has provided an equivalent of 167 years of education to these impoverished children.” - This is thanks to all who have

volunteered, sponsored and given donations as small as 5 Euro.

Early-days: In this photo a better view of our initial tin-shack-school can be seen. This was kindly donated by Fred's father and was crucial in starting-up our program in October 2008. After this, Seamus (above in dark shorts) worked

eagerly on seeking donors to help us build a solid, concrete-block school. He was successful and we started building our school in April 2009.

Plato -

“Do not train children to learn by force and harshness, but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with

accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.”

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End of Year Closing CeremonyHope Orphan Pre-School Youth Group (HOPSYG)

Above: The Closing Ceremony: The preschool children and guardians/parents sit and wait for the start of the prize giving ceremony (for the children who did well in the end of term exams). The top 3 children from every class were given

prizes of copy books, pencils, pens, erasers and sharpeners.Left to right front row: Mohamed Ali, Rahema Juma, Riziki Mohamed, Faith Awino

(all in KG3)Date: 22 November 2012

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End of Year Closing CeremonyHope Orphan Pre-School Youth Group (HOPSYG)

Our Free Teachers:Below, Rafael Polz (our German volunteer teacher) gives out a prize for good

performance to Juma Sudi (from KG 2). Raphael is a volunteer from the American Field Service organization. He is our second volunteer from AFS and has

volunteered as a KG2 teacher for 12 months at our school. He has done excellent work and gave 100% commitment to the program and the children. The kids truly

loved him and he became very close to the Teachers, Fred and Alan.

Our previous volunteer for 2011 was named Elando Tenge and he also did truly amazing work at our school. He loved our school so much that he is now

sponsoring 7 children in Kisauni Baptist Public primary school. Raffael is also sponsoring 2 children in primary school.

Having these volunteers is excellent as they are initially trained by AFS and afterwards our teachers train them further on how to teach. Effectively, these

volunteers are free teachers, for one year. AFS pay for their accomodation, flights and trainings. We only have to support, guide and supervise our volunteer. Unlike other volunteer organisations that provide volunteers for short-term periods of 4 months, these AFS volunteers commit to staying in Kenya for a whole year and therefore they also commit to our school, resulting in much higher quality

work and interaction, with our children.

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End of Year Closing CeremonyHope Pre-school

Above: Sabina (KG3 teacher) addresses the kids and congratulates the kids for their good work during the year hoping that some will get the opportunity to get

sponsored in primary school in 2013. Unfortunately, we were missing about 18 (of the 43) of the children at the closing ceremony, some were also sitting outside.

Above: Rafael gives out another prize of copybook, pencil and pen to Shadrack Chego in KG 1 . Photo taken 22 November 2012

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End of Year Closing CeremonyHope Preschool

The Children enjoy some skipping outside in the playground after the Closing Ceremony

Above: Alan tries his best but just cant get the timing correctFabrigas Trezeguet and Francisca Sika hold the skipping rope for alan

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End of Year Closing CeremonyHope Preschool

Above: Our three teachers, as dedicated and hard-working as ever. Here they wrap the awards/gifts (copy book, pencil, pen, sharpner and eraser) for the prize

giving at the closing ceremony.Left to right: Rafael, Sabina and Fatuma.

22 November 2012

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Sponsored Primary Children- Maryjoy Primary Boarding, Bombolulu

Some of our Primary School (Sponsored Children) visited for our Hope preschool closing ceremony.

Above: Teacher Fatuma, Kalimbo Ishallah and Alan.Kalimbo is the brother to Zuma and from one of our poorest single mothers. He became very ill in 2010 and almost died due to a neglectful mother. He is now

sponsored in one of the top 5 boarding schools in the province (Mary Joy Academy) and he is doing excellently. He returns home in the three holiday

months (December, April and August). The environment is so bad in this Moroto slum that he recently got bitten by a dog (when he returned home on holidays) but we had enough emergency funds to get him the tetanus and rabies shots.

(approx 85euro)

22 November 2012

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Sponsored Primary Children- Maryjoy Primary Boarding, Bombolulu

Kalimbo (Standard 2)

Above: Fatma, Kalimbo, Alan, Sabina.Apologies for seemingly favouring Kalimbo with all of his photos but, to get

Kalimbo to smile can be difficult, he's 'too cool for school'!! 22 November 2012

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Sponsored Primary Children- Chris Preparatory School, Mshomoroni

Margaret Atieno (Standard 2)

Above: Margaret Atieno from Standard 2 with Teacher Sabina at the closing ceremony. Again, you can see how enthusiastic and positive Margaret is by coming to the closing day ceremony at our pre-school although she attends

primary school, where she's sponsored. At our ceremony she helped out with wrapping the gifts and preparing the seating, water, etc., she is a very helpful girl. Although Margaret is another one of our poorest children she attends school very regularly and her financially struggling parents really encourage and support this.

22 November 2012

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Sponsored Primary Children- Chris Preparatory School, Mshomoroni

Salim (Standard 3)

Above: Salim attends the closing ceremony and is smiling as always. He has recently taken to dancing a lot and considers himself an expert dancer. He gave a

display of his dancing skills at the pre-school closing ceremony and everybody was laughing uncontrollably. He performed well again in Chris Prep primary school

in 2012.

22 November 2012

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Sponsored Primary Children- Chris Preparatory School, Mshomoroni

Swabrina (Standard 3)

Above: Swabrina with Teacher Sabina at the closing ceremony. Swabrina is really growing and maturing so fastly but she's still very well behaved and very eager and keen to learn. At the closing ceremony she was leading the fun and mischief

afterwards.

22 November 2012

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Sponsored Primary Children- Chris Preparatory School, Mshomoroni

Note: Unfortunately Kahindi and Margaret Atieno are missing from the above and below photos, taken in October 2012 (second term). Others missing from the photo are Mwaka (now schooling in high quality St

Bernadettes, Mtwpapa) and Rama and Zuma (schooling in a high quality boarding school- Furaha Primary, Mtwpapa). Fred, cracking a joke

managed to get them smiling while getting their photo taken. Swabrina's and Salim's expressions are priceless!

October 2012

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Photo taken October 2012

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Sponsored Primary Children- Furaha Primary Boarding, Mtwapa

Zuma and Rama (Standard 3)

Above: Rama (right of photo and brother of Lilian) and Zuma (brother to Kalimbo seen on page 7, 8), in their Furaha Primary Boarding school uniforms, visit Good Life Orphanage where two of their neighbours and former class mates are now committed. The brother and sister committed are Mwaka Abdallah and Kanoti

Abdallah. Rama finished position one in his class while Zuma finished in position 11.

July 2012

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Sponsored Primary Children- St Bernadette's, Mary's Primary School

@ Good Life OrphanageMwaka and Kanoti

Mwaka (second from left, Standard 3) and Kanoti (third from left, Standard 1) have been doing exceptionally well at Good Life Orphanage (where Alan has been

volunteering for 11 months). This orphanage is probably the best orphanage in the country and therefore they are getting amazing high standards of care and

education. Mwaka uest to be very defensive and closed but now she has opened up so much and is really living like a child. Kanoti finished the school year 2012

top of his class. Mwaka finished in position 7, with very good marks.

July 2012

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Sports 4 Change (S4C)Recently, this charity in Nairobi, Kenya has kindly gotten involved with Hope, through the friendship of S4C co-founders Gabriel Grimsditch, Shiku Waithaka and Alan. Gabriel has been sponsoring Zuma (see photo page 13 and below photo) since 2009. Zuma's brother- Kalimbo (below in green) can also be seen in a more recent photo on Page 6 and 7. This family (as can be seen from below photo) is one of our most needy families. Both Zuma and Kalimbo have been on our program since we started in October 2008 and they are developing hugely, education-wise and development-wise. Kalimbo is finishing in the top 7 of his class while Zuma is finishing in the top 12, with class sizes of 34. This is an amazing achievement considering the neglectful, poverty background they come from.

Left to right: Zuma, Kalimbo and Gabriel (Photo taken November 2010)

Support from Sports For Change:S4C have kindly agreed to sponsor two of our needy children. Fred and Alan have selected Fatuma Juma and Hamisi Swaleh. Both of these children have already complted pre school with Hope. As we couldn't afford to send them to a decent quality private school when they finished preschool in 2011 we sent them to a lower quality, cheaper public school (Kisauni Baptist Primary). They were sponsored by our first German AFS volunteer- Elando. Here they completed standard 1 and we hope they will be able to directly into standard 2 at the good private school of Chris Prep. Unfortunately, Alan was unable to get a photo of these two children as we're very busy with the school construction and rennovation work. A photo will be available next week.

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About Sports For Change: We are a registered non-profit organization with a quest to change society through sports; thus the name Sports for Change. We are not professional athletes, but with a lot of passion for the same we have noticed that a noble course can be assisted through sports to awaken society and uplift thelives of the needy. See www.sports4change.org

Mission: Mobilise the general public to provide economic and educational support to needy youths, women and disabled through sporting activities.

Vision: Needy youths, women and disabled fulfil their potential and are able to access positions of equal social and economic advantage to society at large.

Sports For Change Objectives:1. Organise sports activities to raise funds intended to improve a less

privileged person’s quality of life. 2. Provide educational opportunities for youths that could not otherwise access

them. 3. Raise awareness in society of the needs of the less fortunate. 4. Create opportunities for people to meet and achieve both physical and

philanthropic satisfaction. 5. Partner with philanthropic organisations on a mutual benefit arrangement.

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DAFA School Rennovations

We have some more positive developments in that we just got 2,600 euros to rennovate the school including constructing walls/partitions, replacing the floors and repainting the entire schoo. An Irish couple who are members of an charity called DAFA were the ones who assisted here. A bit thanks to the Maguire family for this!

After visiting our school (October 22, 2012) they concluded and agreed that one of our main needs for support was rennovation and maintenance. Having a beautiful school would allow the children to learn better and the teachers to teach better. We agreed and highlight how difficult it is to get funding for maintenance and rennovations so this support was very much appreciated.

This work will be done through-out the entire school and is badly needed as the olf old floor had gouging holes due to poor quality local cement. The new floor will be of high quality, durable Terrazzo floors (polished marbel and cement composite). We are also erecting plastered stone wall partitions (replacing the decrepit old wooden ones) and painting the entire school inside and outside. This work is ongoing and should be completed during the holiday month of December, before christmas, and ready for the kids for new school year of january 2013. (PHOTOS BELOW from November 28th, 2012). We're really excited as this will make our school so much nicer for teaching and learning.

Fast Moving Building Project: October 22nd 2012 DAFA/Vincent visited Hope preschool and returned home

to the UK a week later. October 23 – 31 Alan and Fred meet with four different building companies

and raised quotations for this renovation work (which was discussed with DAFA).

November 6 We emailed these quotations onto DAFA. Mid-November Vincent then met the Directors of DAFA and discussed this

grant. November 19 DAFA contacted us telling us our grant had been

approved. November 21 As we wanted this construction finished before

Christmas, we raised the money ourselves for an initial deposit for the builder. We then drew-up a contract with the selected builder.

November 24 We gave the builder the initial down payment. November 25 The builder started the work (see below photos of

progress). December 2 We received the DAFA money. December 6 Second payment is made to builderDecember 7 The re-flooring, building of 2 walls, re-painting entire

school and reinforcing ceiling is 90% completedDecember 10 Final work due to be completed.

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DAFA School Rennovations- New Concrete Walls/ Partitions

We are erecting plastered stone wall partitions, replacing the decrepit old wooden partitions. This will allow each of the KG classes to be seperated so they will not

be distracted from eachother.

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DAFA School Renovations- New Terrazzo FloorsThe new floor will be of high quality, durable Terrazzo floors (polished marble and cement composite). The old floors were very worn away as the local Kenyan cement is of poor quality. The below photo of our DAFA visitors shows the bad condition of our old floor (photo taken October 22nd 2012)

Above: These two photos show the construction work on the new Terrazzo floor on November 29th, 2012. Above, the old cement floor, top level has been chipped away. Steel strips have been set into the ground. The next stage was pouring the

composite, compressing it, plastering it and polishing it.

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DAFA School Renovations- Repainting Entire SchoolAs seen in the above photos our school had not been painted in over one year.

Due to lack of maintenance funds we could not prioritize this over the direct education. However, having a nice, well painted, bright environment is very

important to encourage the child's learning. DAFA identified this re-painting work as necessary.

Below: Photos taken of the fence pillar painting work completed on November 29th.

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DAFA School Renovations- Construction up close!

Above: Here you can see the materials the builder was using in supporting the wall during building and in supporting our ceiling. The builder put in some ceiling

supports as our ceiling was sagging a bit.

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About DAFADirect Aid for Africa is a charity with a difference. First, every penny raised is spent in trying to improve the lives of people in the Third World through a range of projects focusing on health care, education and self-help. Second, those who help administer the charity or are involved in facilitating any of its projects do so entirely at their own expense.

Another unusual feature of DAFA is that it has strong links to the racing communities in Britain and Ireland. The charity was founded in 1996 by Barney Curley, the renowned gambler and trainer, who remains its driving force. Curley’s friends and associates have joined him in funding numerous projects that have directly improved the lives of thousands of people in recent years. Supporters include leading jockeys Frankie Dettori, Jamie Spencer, Johnny Murtagh and Tom Queally, as well as a host of top owners from the world of horseracing.

DAFA, which is strictly non-political and non-sectarian, operates predominantly in Zambia, a country 36 times the size of Wales but one that has been utterly blighted by poverty and the impact of AIDS.

DAFA has been involved in funding health centres to treat those suffering from AIDS as well as supporting hospices to provide care for those dying of the disease and to enable them to die with dignity. It has also promoted schemes providing home-based care to AIDS victims and others. AIDS has had a devastating effect on Zambia. With so many adults having succumbed to the disease, there are huge numbers of orphaned children, many simply left roaming the streets. Zambia is a country with a population of 11 million, 2 million of which are orphans and life expectancy is just 38 years of age.

DAFA funds a number of projects providing food for the homeless. It has also acquired houses in the capital Lusaka and in Ndola, in the Copper-belt region near the Congo, to take children off the streets and give them a fresh start in life. In addition, DAFA has underwritten the cost of funding a number of schools. The charity’s focus on education and self-help has resulted in the establishment of community workshops where computers, woodworking equipment and sewing machines are provided to enable people to earn money by learning a trade and selling furniture or clothing.

Following the sale of The Racing Post in October 2007, Trinity Mirror Group were requested by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum to give £10 million to four charities for transferring the license to use the Racing Post trademark, which the Sheikh owns. As one of the four selected charities, DAFA subsequently received a £2.5 million donation as a condition of the sale which took place. Barney Curley was quoted as: "floating on air since hearing the news. I'm never stuck for words, but this time I am. What this will do for people is unbelievable." DAFA cannot express its deepest appreciation enough for the generosity of this gesture by Sheikh Mohammed.

For more information visit www.dafa.co.uk

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Closing Note- Funding!Our funds have just dried-up. We need funds to continue

covering our preschool running costs (porridge, cooking fuel, stationery, electricity, water- costing 80 Euro per month). We

have been looking at ways of generating income at the school (parents making and selling jewellery, renting the

school, starting our poultry production project, extending to a primary school).

This fund-raising is not enough so we have decided that in January 2013 we will have to start taking in private fee-

paying students. This will reduce the amount of poor, non-fee paying children but, its a small price to pay to

keep the project going!

P.S. If anybody has any ideas for Christmas fundraisers and needs support, just contact

Alan or Fred!

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Kalimbo's Dog-bite

See below- Kalimbo's dog-bite medical treatment receipts (for accountability and transparency purposes). After he finished the final term of school he returned

home to Mshomoroni and while walking through the slums he got bitten by one of the many uncontrolled, dirty dogs. We were very worried about this dog having rabies so Fred immediately took him to the hospital to get treated. Thanks to

sponsors paying a little extra in sponsorship for medical emergencies, we were able to pay for the costs of treating this as his mother was not interested in taking him for treatment. Total cost was approximately 85 euro on 27th November, 2012.

Thank you for your generous support.

See a photo of Kalimbo on page 9 & 10

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