Students follow a very demanding secondary curriculum despite very difficult living conditions!

All Kenya secondary students must attain a certain impressive standard at their primary exams(KCPEs) to be considered suitable for the demanding secondary education which consists of as many as 10 subject disciplines. At the end of 4 very difficult years they sit a set of final exams which produces a single KCSE result and based on that they can apply for university, college or a wide range of other useful training courses.

Our students have already proved their ability at KCPE (primary) level but secondary education requires

regular fees and long working days and nights for school and home work. Our donors provide the fees and SSF has now got 55 students at secondary school but without suitable living conditions, vital homework becomes impossible. The Kenyan climate can be hostile at certain times of the year to typical rural house structures and traditional roofs in particular can easily deteriorate beyond repair, Once the roof goes the whole house becomes uninhabitable.

Fred and Ruth in one such house.

Our students all come from challenging backgrounds so once funds became available a joint project was planned in conjunction with members of a local Kenyan church group and the 2 families in the most need were identified. SSF could provide funds for the relatively expensive sheets of mabati tin whilst relatives, friends and the church group provided the timber and labour. Within a very short period of time the first two houses started to take shape.

This is Fred's new house (left). He is with his family in the photo below, (Fred is in yellow). The floor space is considerably bigger than in the original dwelling.

When the frame and roof are in place a mix of local clay and sand is used to infill the walls and then the whole lot is allowed to bake until totally dry.

Once dry, a fine coat of clay is applied to give the whole house a very smooth finish which will withstand most extreme climate conditions whilst the mabati is water-proof even in torrential rain, if fitted properly. It will last many years. Mabati has one obvious disadvantage....it can be very noisy sitting inside during a typical Kenyan deluge but at least it keeps everybody dry. However an extra advantage is that the roof is now an ideal surface for fresh rain water collection if gutters and collecting butts are also fitted. The alternative is the daily toil of collecting very heavy buckets of polluted river water in most cases. So a dry home with fresh drinking water is something Fred and his mother and 5 siblings can now expect & hopefully Fred does stand a chance with his school homework.

Likewise Ruth's family got a similar upgrade (see Crop Project page for photo) but that is where a second charity got involved. 500 Acts of Kindness donated £500 for two more houses and we are currently adding both Mitchele's family and Felix's family to the upgrade scheme...both houses are currently underway.

But it doesn't stop there as 2 more donors have just made a further 2 houses possible. So in this month (Oct2021) Cynthia's family will hopefully be rehoused with a decision on the sixth house being made imminently. Updates will follow as they happen.

Mitchele's new house starting (above) and Mitchele (right)