New Life Academy
We are staying in a village in Bungoma right now with Pastor Patrick and his family. He and his wife Mary have adopted 5 orphans as their children. Faith and Pheobe (6 and 8 years old) are the two girls that live at home with them and their other 3 are at boarding school. They have a church within the village (about 1 km away from their home) and there is a nursery school there as well. I visited there yesterday and had a wonderful time with the children. I got to teach the "Hokey Pokey" for their music class. They pulled out some drums, shakers and other musical instruments they use and we danced together. I wrote the words up on the board and we all did the actions together. The children loved it and when I came back after lunch, they all said "shake, shake", which is how they asked me to sing for them.
After lunch the children drew pictures of their homes. The children shared pieces of pencils that had been broken and the teacher used a razor to sharpen them which is when I almost started to cry thinking about how much canadian children/students have to use. 45 children shared a package of 16 crayons to colour their pictures with. So I also told them that I was going to town tomorrow and would buy them more pencils and sharpeners and crayons.
Seb, Trevor and Luke (the 3 boys that I nannied for last year, in Abbotsford) donated their Tsunami money they raised for me to buy supplies with. We were able to buy 168 lined paper books, 400 erasers, and 288 pencils with their money. THANK YOU BOYS!!!! (I will post a photo as soon as I can). We gave some to all of the school we have visited and (as well as the Staples supplies that we brought from Canada) and the reactions from the children have made this trip worth it in themselves because they are so grateful and so excited to get the new supplies. A little goes a long way here in Kenya and I am so lucky to be here and be able to give things that they only dream of. The parents are suppose to pay a school fee to cover the expenses of supplies but many of them can't afford it and the school would rather have the child getting education than at home so the teachers try to buy the supplies but many of them don't get paid so you can imagine the vicious circle with no solution.
After lunch the children drew pictures of their homes. The children shared pieces of pencils that had been broken and the teacher used a razor to sharpen them which is when I almost started to cry thinking about how much canadian children/students have to use. 45 children shared a package of 16 crayons to colour their pictures with. So I also told them that I was going to town tomorrow and would buy them more pencils and sharpeners and crayons.
Seb, Trevor and Luke (the 3 boys that I nannied for last year, in Abbotsford) donated their Tsunami money they raised for me to buy supplies with. We were able to buy 168 lined paper books, 400 erasers, and 288 pencils with their money. THANK YOU BOYS!!!! (I will post a photo as soon as I can). We gave some to all of the school we have visited and (as well as the Staples supplies that we brought from Canada) and the reactions from the children have made this trip worth it in themselves because they are so grateful and so excited to get the new supplies. A little goes a long way here in Kenya and I am so lucky to be here and be able to give things that they only dream of. The parents are suppose to pay a school fee to cover the expenses of supplies but many of them can't afford it and the school would rather have the child getting education than at home so the teachers try to buy the supplies but many of them don't get paid so you can imagine the vicious circle with no solution.
posted by Courtney and Jon | 3:00 AM
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