Keeping Kenyan Kids in School!

Our Children’s Gardens in Mtito Andei are now providing hot lunches to more than 500 children at two schools. A third garden was planted last week by volunteers next to Iviani Elementary School after a tech team from Global Roots brought piped in water for irrigation.

Keeping children in school in this part of Kenya is critical because Mtito Andei is a place where unattended boys are forcibly recruited into gangs and girls are forced into a lifetime of sexual slavery.

According to our local manager “the presence of the Global Roots projects in these schools has been a big blessing to the students and to the community at large. Currently, the classroom performance has improved due to more learning hours and absenteeism is minimal. Students are now taking hot lunch and this leads to better concentration in the classroom. Furthermore, agricultural skills are being acquired by the students thanks to the Global Roots greenhouse and expansion gardens that are accessible to the pupils during their free time. Poultry keeping has become a keen interest to the pupils and many of them are now practicing this at their homes. The vibrance of our gardens have attracted stray children. Parents are willing to take these children in because they can get food for them from the school garden. The enrollment at our schools with gardens is therefore increasing.

New Garden at Iviani Elementary

The “Iviani" garden was planted today. Despite the many challenges — especially with tire punctures (from long defensive spikes from the Acacia tree), the parents showed courage and now they are proud to have a one hectare farm. The produce will go to the school’s lunch program this spring.

The parents at Iviani call 2014 “a year of blessing”. This is the year that Global Roots technicians piped water into school for the first time and GR also financed the construction of standard toilets. One Iviani father thanked our local Kenyan manager for what he called an “eye opener.” The entire Iviani community has been galvanized by infusions of Global Roots funding and interest.” We want to thank Iviani parents for their hard work!

Our advanced garden at Matangini Elementary is ready for its second harvest in the greenhouse. Sukuma wiki will be planted this round. The school committee is fully functional and all Global Roots transparency requirements are being met.

Our most productive local garden and school lunch program is localted at Matulani Elementary and it excels due to the vigilence of the Matulani PTA and the hard work of the school master.

Sukuma wiki is being planted outside our massive greenhouse in an external garden. The large greenhouse structure next to the eternal garden continues to keep elephants at bay. No elephant has gone closer than 50 meters to our greenhouse -- so our external crops are protected.

The Matulani garden is so well maintained and it has been a learning field to the schools around.

Our annual metrics report will be published next month. We have been collecting the data we need to show that children who enjoy a daily meal at schools in any impoverished area will out excel those who don’t.

None of this would be possible without the donations we have received from donors at Global Giving.

We have attached examples of our oversight and transparency work.

Thank you!