Education Kenya Project #30316

Give Hope to Kisumu's Underprivileged Children

by The Rahul Kotak Foundation

Give Hope to Kisumu's Underprivileged Children

Project Report | Nov 26, 2019
Transforming Valley Academy

By Mansi Kotak & Mohit Kotak | Co-Founders

Painting of the school

Valley Makeover

We remember walking in to Valley Academy for the first time in 2016 quite vividly for two reasons: the first being the incredible energy and enthusiasm of the students and the second being the fact that it barely looked like a school. Over 80 students sat in an open Church hall on benches and on mats while teachers from different corners of the hall tried to keep the attention of their students.

Over the past three years, a lot has changed at Valley Academy… they have movable classrooms, colourful desks and chairs, art work and charts among many other things. However, one aspect of the school has remain unchanged: the interior and exterior of the Church hall has never been painted and as a result the school was always a dull grey which hasn’t been the most conducive learning environment for the children. Not anymore!

On Tuesday, November 5^th 2019, The Rahul Kotak Foundation partnered with Kansai Plascon to host one of their CSR activities, a Painters’ Training Program at Valley Academy. Over 100 painters, 20 church youth and 15 volunteers attended this event to give the school a beautiful makeover. The newly painted hall will provide a conducive learning environment that will make a huge impact in the lives of the children that attend school in some of the most challenging circumstances.

We would like to give a special shout out to Kansai Plascon, especially Mr. Karim Velji and Miss Josephine Bittah, for partnering with us, to make this incredible makeover possible.

End of 2019 Academic Year

As the academic year in Kenya has come to an end, we have had a chance to reflect on some of the achievements and milestones we have reached with your incredible support. As Giving Tuesday is only a week away (3^rd December 2019 – Save the Date!) we wanted to share some of our goals for the upcoming 2020 academic year.

In 2019, we reached a milestone of serving just a little over 200,000 meals. In 2020, we wish to reach the 500,000 mark taking us closer to our 5-year goal of 1,000,000 meals. And it's not just about the numbers... we would like to introduce fruit and serve more vegetables as part of the Meals Program
In 2019 we have set up 2 more libraries in Kisumu County. In 2020, we aim to have set up an additional three libraries, having distributed over 25,000 books
With the ever-increasing focus on Climate Change, we aim to start an "Enviornment in Education" program that introduces simple and practical solutions for looking after the Environment through workshops and tree-planting exercises. It is our goal to plant at least 20,000 trees in 2020
And so much more...

Does this sound like something you would like to support? Giving Tuesday is one of the biggest days to support non-profits. This year, GlobalGiving is matching funds using an Incentive Fund of US$500,000. Save the date and support our projects on Tuesday, 3rd December 2019.

Watching the school transform

The Transformation Process

Practical Training for Painters = Beautiful School

Set up of the event

3rd December: SAVE THE DATE!

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Aug 30, 2019
Brush, brush, brush your teeth...

By Roda Achieng & Zanela Adhiambo | RKF Interns

For the love of books

GlobalGiving July Workshop Reports

Since 2017, RKF has been implementing volunteer-run workshops every year that are aimed at introducing extra-curricular activities at the various schools we work with in a fun and engaging way. In 2019, we carried out our biggest yet set of workshops with the help of over 25 incredible volunteers.

We were able to visit five schools in different localities of Kisumu County over three weeks to carry out some old and some brand new workshops that included: Fun Sports, Taekwondo, Arts & Crafts, Hygiene, Environmental Awareness, Menstrual Hygiene, Field Trips, Movies and Reading & Storytelling. We were also able to have our very first RKF Talent Show and we wrapped up the workshops with a day of jumping on a Bouncy Castle!

Over the coming weeks, we’ll be sharing detailed reports of the several workshops we carried out in July. In this report, we’ll be highlighting the Arts & Crafts, Hygiene and Reading & Storytelling Workshops.

Arts & Crafts

This is an old favourite that we conducted for the third straight year. One of the aims of this workshop is to encourage children to use their creativity and innovation to use whatever is available and make it into art. Each class had a different activity assigned to them that ranged from finger painting to making cards using scraps and making caterpillars out of used egg trays. Class 1 and 2 exercised their home science by weaving papers cut out in shapes. Watching the children’s excitement as they showed off their crafts made the visits so enjoyable and totally worth the long, bumpy bus rides!

Hygiene

After its popularity last year, we took the hygiene workshop to some of our newer schools this year. The children spent a whole morning learning about oral hygiene, brushing their teeth, washing their hands all while learning a song that would help them remember how to do it. Brush, brush, brush your teeth… wash, wash, wash your hands! Sing them with the melody of row, row, row your boat... At the end of the workshops all the students got brand new tooth brushes and a tube of tooth paste to take home and keep practicing what they learnt from the workshops. They also learnt how to tie their shoe laces and tuck in their shirts properly.

Reading & Storytelling

As part of our Kitabu Changu Haki Yangu program, we carried out our second Reading and Storytelling Workshop at St Vitalis Nang’a Primary School. This workshop introduced the students to their new library and the rules of how to use it. During this workshop, approximately 420 students listened, read and created stories with our volunteers. One class had a very unique way of approaching the activity; the volunteers encouraged the children to create a story entirely from their imagination.

Over the coming weeks, we’ll be sharing details of some of the other amazing workshops we carried out. We’ve also shared a link to our Girls Project: Empower & Educate the Girls of Rural Kisumu where we recently posted about the Menstrual Hygiene workshop and the screening of Queen of Katwe.

Brush, brush, brush your teeth

Metamorphosis: When egg trays become caterpillars!

Some of our amazing volunteers

The Power of Brushing

So what can you do with paint?

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May 29, 2019
A Visit from GlobalGiving

By Mansi Kotak & Mohit Kotak | Co-Founders

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