newsletter feb 2015

Hope Orphan Pre-School Youth Group (HOPSYG) Estd. Oct 2008

Our New Primary School

Newsletter: February 2015

Above: Our New, Almost Completed Primary School.

Our New Primary School- Class Has Started!

IntroductionWe started with 32 children in our preschool in October 2008. We now have 113 children (36

sponsored in public primary school, 14 sponsored in private day school, 9 sponsored in private

boarding school, 12 in our own new primary school and 45 in our preschool). We lost three children

this year. Two relocated to their rural home. One, Lilian- who has been on our program since we

started refused to go to primary school and has a sensitive personal issue.

We have just finished the construction of the shell of our new primary school so we can move our kg3 children into this building to get them started on primary school education. Although we have completed the most difficult and expensive part we still have to finish the school including plumbing, electrical work, fixing, plastering, terazzo floors, windows, doors, furniture etc. We estimate this to cost between 8-12,000 Euro, depending on quality. If you know somebody who can help with fund raising please let us know.

We have now taken our first group of children into our new primary school. Although we have not it completely finished we must move our children in here because we can not afford to send our kg3 children to a primary school. We have got 12 children who have completed kindergarten 3 class in our preschool.

Our New Primary School- Class Has Started!

Note: there are 17 children in the above photo. 12 are from our kg3 class of 2014 and will remain in our new primary school, standard one. The remainder are our primary sponsored children. Because the Kenya public school teachers are on strike Baptist public school is closed so these children came to our school while they were waiting

for their school to open.

Our New Primary School Teacher- Dianah

Left to right: Sarah Baert (Belgian co-founder, Fatma- Head Teacher (kg 1 &2), Fred Mulama- co-

founder & Co-ordinator/Social Worker, Sabina Mulama- kg3 teacher, Dianah Mulati- Standard

One Teacher.

We have been very luck to have a visit from Sarah. Sarah Baert has been funding a small salary

for our two teachers since 2010. She has now agreed to fund our new Standard 1 teacher- Dianah.

Unfortunately, she has not been able to visit since 2008 due to her work commitments. She has

finally taken a break from her work and will spend one year in Mombasa where she will help Fred

with his huge amount of administration, planning, fund raising, logistics, etc. She is also helping

teaching in kindergarten.

Our 14 Primary School Children Sponsored at Chris

Preparatory Primary School

These photos show our private day school students at Chris Preparatory primary school. They are all being sponsored. Some are

in standard 2 to five. Names: Zoom in closely to see the children's names.

The Building of our New Primary SchoolMeasuring/Surveying the Land (June 11, 2014)

The Building of our New Primary School

Digging the Foundations (June 13)

Foundation Walls with Steel Reinforced Columns (June 25)

Note: These steel rods/rebar (above) are not usually included in Kenyan buildings. They are included here to make the shell/structure stronger because we plan to add a floor (1st floor) to our new primary school in the future. If you look closely at the photograph on page 10 and 13 you will notice we also have steel bars going around the perimeter of the building, below the floor and above the windows. As we are a charity whose income is unknown and unreliable we never have good bargaining power so this time we want to make this provision/plan for the future, building upwards.

Floor Ballast with Horizontal Reinforced Steel (July 10).

Concrete Floor Poured and Tamped (July 19)

Note: in the background you can see the building that was already on the new plot of land we

bought. We have some renovation work to do on this building also including plumbing, plastering,

electrical, etc.

Walls Being Erected (August 2, 2014)

Walls Fully Erected on First Part (Aug 12)

Without Stair Pillars (August 25, 2014)

Roof on First Part of Building (October 2)

More Columns to Support Future 1st Floor (Oct 23, 2014)

Roof Complete (November 6, 2014)

Nutrition ProgramMany of our children suffer severe malnourishment. This not only prevents body growth and prevents concentration in school but also increases children’s chances of developing learning disabilities, heart disease, brittle bones, eye sight problems, etc.After receiving generous funding from Stella at Africa Watoto we started a nutrition program. We were already giving the children basic and very cheap flour and sugar porridge every day at school but they lacked, and we couldn’t afford to provide them with essential fats, proteins and vitamins and minerals which children get from animal fats and milk.

We added powdered milk and oil to the uji/porridge mix we provide daily to improve vital nutrition of essential fats and protein. This was based on a nutrition program completed by the Maryknoll medical team at Bangladesh Parish Nutrition program, Mombasa.Over 7 months (started in February.)

the children increased their weight by approximately 2.4kg.

See recorded weights in Appendix 1.Total quantities of food included 80 kg of powdered milk 132 litres of oil.Total cost: 1,070 Euros (excluding transport, catering facilities/staff, administration)

Nutrition Program

The children holding the oil and powdered milk before their daily porridge

meal.

Three More Children With SponsorshipCatharina Johansson Berg founder of Swedish Friends of Children International Adoption Society made contact with us through a volunteer a few years ago. She came to visit our school and was deeply moved by the need of the children in Mshomoroni. She asked Fred to find the three most needy children in our program and she would sponsor them. She started sponsoring three children (Fridah Mwanajuma,Omar Ali and Mohamed Ali) in a private boarding school in April 2014. We already have two other children in this school so they have friends from their neighbourhood in the school already (Zuma and Rama).

Social Situation: Omar (8 years old) and Mohamed (8 years old) are special children for us as they are from very disadvantaged backgrounds and both have completed three years in our preschool and one year sponsored in a public primary school but due to their severe poverty, we selected these as most needy of private boarding school. They are 'kind of brothers', living in the same house. Omar is uncle to Mohamed as his mother could no longer look after him. Zawadi is Mohamed's mother but the father has deserted them so Zawadi does her best to take care of her five children, plus Omar.

At the boarding school they get good nutrition, security, bedding, clothing, residence and basic health care, totally different from living in the harsh slum. They entered standard 3. There they study and live for 3 months (one semester) and then return home for one month break, four times in a year. They also return home in mid-term break for one week, every semester. Below you will see all three children in their uniform starting school and also out of uniform attending an interview. Left to right: Fridah, Omar, Mohamed.

Face Lift for our Pre-school FenceAs always we have never had enough funding to make our school as beautiful an environment for

our fabulous children. When considering our perimeter fence design we really had to think of

security and cost. Theft is a huge problem in this economically disadvantaged area. While building

our school in 2009 our kitchen tap/fossett was even stolen because we did not have a fence. As we

didn't have enough funding we could only afford to put barb wire fence at the start. This looked

horrible for a preschool but it was all we could afford.

Thanks to our friend and co-founder- Sarah Baert we now have a beautiful wooden fence in place

of the barbwire. This cost a total of 1,220 Euro (126,000 Kes) and was erected on April 2014. Sarah

is a Social Worker in Belgium and is married to Fred's brother- Albert. She will be volunteering for

one year helping out with fund raising and teaching. Sarah did the fund raising that built our new

beautiful school fence. Thanks again Sarah for everything! (need playground photos also)

Fund Raising in Shanghai, China.Alan is now working and living in Shanghai coordinating a Community Service program and

teaching World History and Politics in an international school- Shanghai United International

School.

His students learned about Alan’s Kenya project through community service and wanted to help.

Through their charity (Tuck-In) they worked hard designing t-shirts and carrier bags for sale during

SUIS annual fund raiser. Unfortunately the sales was not so high because there were many other

fund raising sales that day. They sold 10 t-shirts and ten bags and they’re now working on

organizing another fund raiser. Well done to the students, especially Cash Barnes and Kathy Chen,

leaders of Tuck-in, Wan Yuan.

Look closely at the bag Alan is holding, the drawing is of Fred. This drawing was done by one of our

kids in Kenya.

Lilian- A Sad StoryLilian has been on our program since we started in October 2008 and has been one of our brightest children. Up until now she's been sponsored by an irish friend of mine. Lilian has reached adolescence and this has complicated her schooling a lot.

As with our other girls and this is also common with many girl children in developing countries, the girl is less prioritized for education and they face many more challenges, especially in poverty stricken areas. This is true for Lilian also. She has budded into a beautiful young woman and is being approached by many young boys who often buy her food and gifts so she doesn't see the benefits of staying at school. As many of her female friends in the slum dont go to school either she has lost motivation. There are few job opportunities for girls to get work in Kenyan slums and men are seen as the main providers so if a girl gets married then the man/boy must provide for her. This means the girl child has gotten more financial support and her poverty might be reduced.

This would be a huge tragedy to lose her at this stage after she's come so far and was one of our brightest kids (and one of our poorest kids) so she's special to us. We tried moving her from a day school to a boarding school where she would not have to worry about food, shelter, security, etc but, she did not accept this. Unfortunately, at her adolescent age she does not see the importance of education and prefers to have a boyfriend who can provide for her.

Became pregnant when she was still 15, she's now 7 months pregnant. See her below with her classmates in February 2009 and see her photo from 2014 with Fred and her mother (left)

Appendix 1- Nutrition Program Weight Increase

HOPSYG KIDS WEIGHT BEFORE MILK NUTRITION PROGRAM ON FEBRUARY 2014

1st Weight Three months Seven Months Difference

KG 1

Fatuma Daudi 18.0 kg 20.1 kg 22kg 4

Alex 15.1 kg 16.5 kg 16.9 k 1.8

Chizi Zuma 15.6 kg 16.5 kg 19 kg 3.4

Swabrina 12.4 kg 13.0 kg 14 kg 2.6

Emmanuel 17.4 kg 19.0 kg 20.5kg 3.1

Faraji 16.5 kg 17.7 kg 19.9 kg 3.4

Shamala 17.6 kg 18.8 kg 20.1 kg 2.5

Islam Sudi 17.6 kg 19.0 kg 21 kg 2.4

Baraka Tsuma 17.9 kg 20.2 kg 20.8 kg 2.9

Maryam 12.0 kg 14.1 kg 15.2 kg 3.2

Rashid 17.3 kg 19.5 kg 20.4 kg 3.1

KG 2

Saumu Tsuma 21.6 kg 23.0 kg 24.3 kg

Mary Wanjiku 18.1 kg 18.1 kg 20.9 kg

Martin Juma 25.2 kg 26.0 kg 28.5 kg

Mohammed Awadh 18.8 kg 21.1 kg 22 kg

Suleiman Chege 24.4 kg 25.3 kg 28.6 kg

Sada Chai 16.7 kg 19.2 kg 20.5 kg

Irene Hamisi 16.7 kg 18.0 kg 19.5 kg

Mohammed Chai 18.2 kg 20.1 kg 20.8 kg

Salome Omar 17.1 kg 17.9 kg 19.3 kg

Moses Oketch 19.3 kg 20.1 kg 21.3 kg

Mohammed Ali 21.5 kg 23.0 kg 24 kg

Rama 18.8 kg 21.7 kg 22.1 kg

KG 3

Esha Omar 19.3 kg 20.8 kg 21.9 kg 2.2

Khadija Miraj 19.3. Kg 21.6 kg 22. Kg 2.7

Faith Hassan 20 kg 21.0 kg 22.7 kg 2.7

Kibibi Ayubu 25.2 kg 26.3 kg 28.2 kg 3.0

Franscisca Masese 18.5 kg 20.1 kg 20.5 kg 2.0

Salama Bahati 24.4 kg 25.2 kg 26.8 kg

Fikiri kazungu 22.2 kg 22.5 kg 23.7 kg

Shadrack Chengo 20.4 kg 22.0 kg 23.3 kg

Joshua Ziro 22.2 kg 25.0 kg 25.9 kg

Seif Soni 25.0 kg 23.5 kg 26.5 kg

Mbwana Ali 18.0 kg 19.7 kg 22.1 kg

Mohammed Shindo 19.5 kg 20.4 kg 22.6 kg

School Report Cards, Chris Prep Day SchoolOur students have now completed the school year of 2014 (January to December). The below are

the report cards for our 14 day students at Chris Preparatory Primary school. We are now humbly

asking our donors if they can sponsor these kids again for another year as they are close to

completing their primary school education.

Rama and Zuma- A Report on Our Oldest Boys Who Are

Sponsored in Furaha Primary School

(See their photos from 2008 on page 21) 30Th Dec 2014

PIC TAKEN DURING CLOSSING SCHOOL FOR DECEMBER HOLIDAYS

Rama Nyambu and Juma Ishalla, Report from Fred.

Academically the two boys are very determined and hardworking,always eager to learn and prefers being at

school rather than at home. What really amazes me and all the teachers of the school is the ability of Rama

Nyambu (genius I would say academically)coming from poor background ,not having the luxuries other kids

have at school ,he beats the odds and has been atop performer in his class for two good years,those teachers

who doughted his ability enrolled him for inter schools mathematical competition and he smoothly proved

his worth by being the best,this boy is not a gamble .Now he says he wants to be a pilot and all teachers in

the school calls him Mr.Pilot

For juma Ishalla too in class is doing well specifically when they revise together with Rama .in ranking he

is usually in position eight and nine. He has improved a lot academically and maturity and now he even

helps in advising other kids in the school when they do wrong. I have attached their academic report cards

for the end of year 2014 third term.

Socially the boys confidence has grown high,infact when they go back home in holidays other kids admire

them a lot and they act as a good example in the community. For Rama when he closes school he lives in a

mad house with his mother who is a drunkard and sell illicit brew this doesn't give him humble time to

concentrate on education while at home,

For juma Ishalla,having come from the same neighborhood with Rama their challenges are almost same

living with jobless single mother who is an addicts of alcohol,thereby not having access to meals at home

not unless they involve themselves in small jobs with him young brother.

My final comments is your organization has put on light in the lifes of these two boys ,all their

brothers,sisters and guardians have all put their hopes in this boys future please dont put of the light for them

because if their light brighten it will touch many in the community.Finally my view is when you send school

fees for them all the money goes direct to the school account only for school fees,most of the time we are

left trying to raise money for their uniform ,books and even pocket money and money for consumables at

school lie soap,toothpaste and many others,sometimes we don't manage to get all and the kids feel bad.

Ones again Thank you for your noble spirit to help .

Rama and Zuma's Report Cards

newsletter feb 2015

Documents