Jul 5

Written by:
7/5/2011 12:17 PM 

HABARI: NEWS FROM JUBILEE SCHOOL KENYA -  JUNE  2011

The school year in Kenya is in the last month of the second trimester that will end on July 29 and the children will be gone home for a month before resuming early September for the last trimester of the year that will end in November.  Generally it is reported that things have been going on well with the children and the staff.  Unlike the first trimester when new children need a lot of care to get used to the school, they have now become acclimatized and there are few children going to the hospital for treatment of common colds and other climate change related child health care.  

The teachers have been trying hard to cover the expected syllabus for this term which is very much interrupted by other official extra curricular activities in all schools in Kenya.

Prices of essential commodities and food have gone very high in Kenya within the last four months. The cost of some items has increased by almost 50% and we are monitoring the situation hoping that things will change soon and that we may not have to increase school fees for children.

 JUBILEE SCHOOL COMPETES IN KENYA PROVINCIAL MUSIC FESTIVAL

In Kenya extracurricular activities in school have an outstanding role in the life of students.  For the first two trimesters of the school year students have to participate in drama and ball games in the first trimester and in music and athletics in the second trimester.  Music Festival is the biggest cultural festival that is celebrated in Kenya Schools and Colleges.  This festival goes back as far as 1927.  Each year a theme is carefully chosen that must enhance our national values for a better Kenya. This aims to promote peaceful co-existence, good governance, cultural diversity, patriotism and embracing different political and religious views. This activity goes on as extracurricular in all schools and colleges during the second trimester of the school year which begins in May and ends in August.

 Kenya music and festival takes pride in being the single cultural event in Africa with close to 80,000 participants from different provinces each year.  The festival tends to celebrate the Kenyan cultural heritage and extravaganza of music, dance and expression which involved a wide age range of entries from nursery schools, primary, secondary schools, colleges and universities. Each institution has to work hard from grassroots level as a team, and some events may have only one student as a competitor for the school or for the Zone, District, Province and even at National level.  This event has not only helped students find avenues of self-expression but also learn important cultural values and practices of the collective nation and the world body of society.  The Kenya music festival helps students benefit from its educational value by identifying, nurturing and exposing talent and teaching through music, dance and voice production.

This year our school had teams at District level and we managed to have a girl from our school that represented the District at Provincial level in a Verse (poetry). There were 600 students at Provincial level competing in various activities and a girl from Jubilee school number seven.

 CORRUPTION IN PUBLIC SCHOOL - KENYA

Recently a report from Kenya indicates that according to the country’s anti-corruption commission, Kenya loses 40% of its gross domestic product to corruption every year.  A leading Kenyan newspaper last week had  a front-page article, titled “How free education billions donated by international communities to public schools were stolen,” details how more than 100 government officials, including top civil servants, deposited money meant for schoolbooks and teacher salaries into fake bank accounts, only to later withdraw and steal the money. There are children in Kenya who attend their classes under the trees, sitting on rocks and do not have desks.

 ONGOING CONSTRUCTION  

Our current construction work is on two dormitories and I am sure our friends who have visited the school website have seen the tremendous progress in the last few months. We have all the reasons to thank our donors for it is through their generosity that we can be able to move faster when funds are available.  I use masons and workers whom I pay on weekly basis rather than contractors. With this system, money can only be released once the construction work has been accomplished as expected with the previous funds allocation.  In this way I have experienced that work moves reasonably well and there is no reason for delay. 

 In my last blog I reported that the walling of our two Dormitories had been completed and that we were preparing for ring beam and gables (peak of building’s side walls).

Since then the ring beam has been reinforced and the sub wall above it completed with wall plate bolts. Windows have been made and fixed in their place, trusses have been made and fixed and roofing has been completed on one of the Dormitories.  I am glad to report that we are now moving on well and plastering on the walls will be our next major job before we fix the window panes and doors. I am very much encouraged by what is going on and it is promising that we might have the major job on the two Dormitories over by end of August this year.  Please visit our Gallery and enjoy more pictures from Jubilee School.

 FRIENDS OF JUBILEE SCHOOL

This summer Jubilee School will be honored with a visit by five members of the family that has been in the frontline in our development of the school. They are looking forward to their visit and seeing the school they have been so much involved with building, along with the help of many of our friends, and in a special way this time to see items they rescued and paid to ship in a container all the way from the US to the school now actually being used in the school.   Please read more of this in Barbara’s blog of 4/20/2011

 “Clever is the eye that has travelled”  Maasai proverb

Fr. Symon