Our Christmas appeal this year aims to raise £9,500 for the building of two classrooms at West End School in the Rhonda area of Nakuru city, Kenya’s fourth largest city and one suffering from large areas of slums. The majority of people here live on barely a dollar a day, so food is limited, let alone education.

The school provides a free education for 182 students, partly funded by the African Adventures Foundation who have also helped by upgrading the school buildings with concrete and brick and iron roofs to meet government regulations. The school provides 2 years of pre-primary education and grades 1 to 6 up to eleven years old. We have confidence in the Foundation’s ability to manage projects and if this appeal is successful, it will allow the school to expand from six to eight classrooms.

Not only will this expand overall capacity it will allow much needed separation of age groups in class. West End school already has piped water and toilets and a kitchen which serves porridge and a basic lunch to reduce malnutrition which also helps to make sure children attend school. Many of the children who leave West End for secondary education come back and help in their free time or school holidays. The school is a beacon in its community and highly valued by parents who just cannot afford the state school fees.

A local builder has provided a quote for the building work, a two storey construction, including labour, ground work, aggregate and construction materials and roofing, corrugated iron and timber. It totals £9500. African Adventures will have a permanent member of staff present to direct, monitor and report on progress. Money will be transferred in tranches as required by the progress of the project.

It is expected that the project will take less than three months to complete once the donation is confirmed and work commences.