Over the last few weeks heavy rains and devastating floods and mudslides have ravaged parts of Kenya.
Whilst our project area has seen regular rainfall over the last few months, fortunately it has been nothing like that experienced in Nairobi and other parts of the country where hundreds have been killed, thousands have lost their livelihoods overnight, and hundreds of thousands more have been displaced from their homes.
With some schools in these areas being used to accommodate displaced people and as centres for disaster response and relief activities and with an obvious threat to life to children travelling to and from school, the government ordered a two-week shutdown of all schools nationwide on the day that schools were due to reopen for the second term of the year at the end of April.
With the threat of more heavy rain having passed for now, children in the majority of schools returned to the classroom on Monday this week but we await an announcement from the Ministry of Education on how the lost time will be made up and the impact on curriculum delivery minimised.
Whilst the rains have been devastating and tragic for some schools and communities, they have been a blessing to ours after so many challenging years of intense and prolonged drought.
Rainwater storage tanks are full and have been overflowing, school gardens are lush, green and full of life, and kitchen gardens in those schools that have them are thriving and producing an abundance of vegetables and greens for children to enjoy with their usual lunch.
Stepping into any one of our partner schools is now an even more wonderful, uplifting, and energising experience! We hope the photos below give a sense of that although, of course, they are no substitute for experiencing it first-hand for oneself!
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Our thoughts are with those whose lives have been upturned in recent weeks and with the families of those that have lost their lives to the floods; if you can, please consider donating to support relief efforts and to help people and communities rebuild their shattered lives. A trusted charity known to us which is engaged in this work is Chance for Childhood.