KENYA-SCHOOL NEWS FEBRUARY 2022
It has been a while since I last shared news from my home Country Kenya and mainly on the Father Ntaiyia Jubilee School. The last blog letter with many pictures in the school website was almost a year ago. We are happy to report that over 220 boys and girls in this school have been going on with their studies amidst challenged of on and off school due to COVID-19 interruptions. There have been other unbecoming happenings faced by the people in my homeland, due to prolonged drought and economic shortcomings that are being experienced all over the world. We are thankful that we have had no cases of COVID in the school even though some families related to members of our school family have lost loved ones
Despite fears and uncertainties, we have been able to keep the school open and for that to have been possible we have counted on cooperation of parents who have been able to keep their children in school and we have counted on support from our friends of the school like you here in the US. Thankfully friends of Father Ntaiyia Jubilee School donations during my 40th. ordination anniversary in December 2020 and Christmas season 2021 have been very supportive. Your gift to the school by check or online donations is treasure, spent wisely, and have true impact via the nomadic families and their children who learn in Father Ntaiyia School. We get information about our past students and are happy that some of them are doing very well after we prepared them in Father Ntaiyia School.
We had a Board of Directors (BOD) meeting for the Friends of Father Ntaiyia School Charity that takes care of donations. This BOD operates from here in Ontario NY and not in Kenya as someone asked in the past. The charity is registered here in NY State. We are thankful to be able to give this service on behalf the Friends of the School and each year we present our tax returns that are well accepted. The secretary of the charity has just sent acknowledgement letters to those who donated recently. I am glad to welcome new friends from St. Katharine Drexel who after learning about this school have joined in donating. Although I have not been able to visit Kenya as I usually do each year, we have had some small successful projects such as textbooks, repairs, and maintenance that the Charity funds, the charity also pays school fees for a few students.
The Kenya school year calendar that usually starts in January and ends in November has been disoriented by COVID-19 such that the current year started on July 26, 2021, and is ending on March 4, 2022. Because of this and uncertainty of pandemic some parents were not hesitant bringing the little ones (3rd. graders to enroll in a boarding school) to enroll in our school far from home. We registered ten little ones this year and five of them are day schooling. Because of pandemic as I mentioned in that year-old blog, many school were closed in Kenya and for that reason we got some pupils coming from such school to join our school.
Prolonged drought and confusion of pandemic have affected many people in Kenya, when rains fail people who depend on their small farms or animals for livelihood are badly affected. Many domesticated animals have died, and the recovery from drought takes a long time. We have had a few parents not able to pay for fees of their children and when it accumulated, they simply did not bring he child at the end of a trimester or end of the school year. Prices of many items including food and teaching materials have gone up in the sores and shops
I have mentioned in the past that Kenya is changing the system of Education that has been on almost 40 years to a new named Competency Based Curriculum (CBC) we are already in the 3rd year of the new system and up to now its future not clear.
I will be sharing more news in school website with pictures soon.
Thank you for joining us in educating young people in Kenya
Fr. Symon