Empower, Engage, Educate in Rural Kenya!

Asante Sana! It has been a wonderful 2014 for Kenya Connect as a result of partners like you! We are deeply grateful for your continued support and wanted to share a few of our accomplishments this year. Together we have:

• Provided an 8 week technology course for 300 students and 40 teachers-- for most participants it was the first time using a computer! 
• Installed 10 hand washing stations bringing the total to 38 with 8 more to be installed in 2015 as a result of the Global Giving Campaign.
• Dewormed 3000 students and teachers from 12 schools and provided hygiene and health lessons
• Increased the Learning Resource Center library to over 500 books and periodicals and developed and implemented the first check-out system for teachers and students-- this campaign will provide 6 packages of books written and published in Kenya
• Served 15,000 students from 44 primary and 11 secondary schools in Wamunyu
• Installed a Satellite Dish providing a faster and more reliable internet connection for our 22 computers
• Provided 4 professional development workshops on literacy and improved teaching methodology by U.S. educators and held workshops on team building, reading, and other classes by the two teams who visited Wamunyu this year
• Funded 12 students through The School Fund and provided a trip for the geocaching club to tour Nairobi (for most students it was a first time in Nairobi)
• Participated as a testing site for enhanced curriculum by Young African Express
• Begun composting and silkscreening through Kenya Connect's Learning Resource Center
• Held our first 5k race in Wamunyu and in the United States
• Continued to exchange Pen Pal letters, art projects and science experiments with students in the U.S. and other developed countries.

For students in Wamunyu, the Kenya Connect Learning Resource Center is a beacon of hope and the light of learning. Recently a young student, Waluu, visited the LRC. Below is an exerpt from a piece he wrote on the experience.....

When I switched on my computer for the first time, I was amazed at the many beautiful pictures I saw on the window. Wow it was breathtaking! That day I still remember how we were also taught how to change the desktop background. It was so fascinating! When the lesson was over, I did not want it to end but our teacher said we needed to shut down the computers and return back to school. Again, we packed ourselves in the track and returned back to school. Our friends back at school were very eager to know what we had learned. I told my best friend; Nduku all what we had learned.

“Oh no! I should not have missed this. I wish I was in your class” said Nduku jealously. When I went home that evening, I told my parents about our computer class and all we had learnt and they were very happy for me. They both encouraged me to study very keenly saying that computer skills will open many opportunities to make me a successful student.

As we end 2014, we want to thank you for supporting our work in Kenya and for providing the resources and tools for one of the most valuable gifts, the gift of an education. On behalf of James Musyoka, Field Director, and the entire Kenya Connect team, we wish you a very happy and healthy 2015.

"We do not have a strong bandwidth to serve you with fast Internet". This has been the discouraging answer we were given from all the Internet service providers whom we approached for help with Internet issue for our remotely located Learning Resource Center (LRC)  in Wamunyu, Kenya for almost a year now.  We never gave up the search though; and finally we are very excited to announce that a company, Simba Net, was able to install a satellite dish to provide high speed Internet connection at LRC. Hooray!!!

All the 20 mac mini computers and  8 laptops are now connected to the Internet through cables (laid early this year) and linked to an ethernet switch and router which are connected to Internet via a satellite (thanks to our many donors). Most important, all the computers can access Internet through WIFI connection! This gives users much flexibility to access the Internet in the computer lab or LRC building or within the proximity of the LRC while enjoying its serene and beautiful environment! This is a huge milestone in our remote rural village where the only available Internet service is via cellphone line which is unreliable and quite intermittent and slow due to weak signal. For the first time, the satellite dish is providing the LRC with fast Internet and opening the community up to many opportunities! The education prospects for this fast Internet remain bountiful for students, teachers, schools and the community who have access to the LRC.

This is absolutely beautiful!

(Samuel N. - A student at Mwaasua PS admires watching an online educational video at the LRC)

Over a year now, Nyaani secondary school has been involved in a book club project with their partner school, Arundel High School in Maryland. Both schools have been quite frustrated with many unsuccessful attempts to do skyped book discussions due to low and intermittent Internet speed. We have already tested the skpe connection after the dish installation and it is working perfectly! We are looking forward for fruitful discussions for our book club in the new year. Besides, we are currently working to enhance education opportunities for our schools by partnering with the U.S. Embassy in Kenya to provide our teachers with access to Internet resources and webinars through E-library.  The resources in the E-library are enormous and will be of great help to teachers, and especially English language teachers who  work with minimal teaching resources yet are expected to prepare their students to gain mastery of English!

We remain most grateful for your generous support that continue to make our plans for a stronger education for Wamunyu students a reality. We are pleased to inform you that we will be participating in Global Giving challenge in this coming month of December. Kindly participate and support us to continue making huge strides towards improving the education standards in our area schools through the educational services we offer at the LRC.  The December Global Giving Project includes wonderful gift ideas like technology classes for 10 students, a hand washing station, or soccer balls.

Again, thank you for your continued support over this year. We take this early opportunity to wish you happy holidays.