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| COMMUNITY LINKS IN KENYA |
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For some 17 years Yateley School in Hampshire, (the school in which Sarah has worked for a number of years), have developed a link with Marafa District near the coast at Malindi in Kenya. Initially we set up a pen-pal link but twelve years ago this developed into groups of students from Yateley Sixth Form Centre being taken out as visitors to Marafa. Since then 41 students have visited Kenya. The students spend a week at a primary school in the Marafa District, working with school children and then visit other parts of Kenya on safari. |
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The impact that this has had on these students has been extraordinary. To work in a primary school of 1200 African children left many of them temporally speechless! The cultural value both to students and to the African children is very significant. The students begin to realise first-hand the problems of growing up in the developing world, whilst the African children develop knowledge that there is a world outside their small community. Over the years the pupils at Yateley School have raised substantial sums of money to support education in the Marafa District. Initially at Marafa Primary School funds were supplied for buildings and resources. For the last five years we have moved our support to the Teachers'/Community Centre. This supplies support to all 25 schools in the Marafa District. Yateley has raised funds to provide a generator (the first electricity in the community) a photocopier for producing educational worksheets, a television and video used by teachers for in-service education and the community for health and educational videos. We have also substantially enlarged and reconstructed the Centre to provide more meeting space and offices. We are currently developing a resources collection that can be loaned to all schools and have provided funds to provide local employment for a lady from Marafa who provide administration support at the Centre. |
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In addition to the involvement of Yateley School, through the students we have out, other groups in Yateley have become involved. This includes the Girl Guides who raised funds to provide sports equipment for the resources collection and Yateley Football Club who have donated football kit to the schools. St Nicholas' School, Fleet have also provided substantial financial support for education in the Marafa district, purchasing textbooks, reading books and mathematics and science equipment for the resources collection. |
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The other major contributor in Yateley has been St Peter's Church. They raised substantial funds to assist in the build of an Anglican Church in Marafa. This project has been running for 12 years with the local community attempting to build their own church. The support of St Peter's has enabled substantial progress and they have promised further support to complete it. The Hospital of St Cross with the Parish of St Faith in Winchester has also supported financially the building of the Anglican Church of Marafa. |
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The progress of the Yateley-Marafa Project is detailed below: 1990 Sarah and Steve Miller visited Kenya.
On a 'Meet the People' tour from 1991 Yateley School raised £110 to sponsor a student through secondary education in Marafa. 1992 A further £110 was raised to continue the sponsorship. 1993 An additional £110 was raised for the sponsorship together £160 to provide materials to build a classroom at Marafa Primary school. 1994 10 students from Yateley Sixth Form Centre were taken to Kenya and worked in Ramada Primary School (near Marafa) for a week Reading books, Lego, and a cassette recorder were taken out and £400 was spent locally providing resources such as exercise books, chalk, pens and pencils, sponsoring a Nursery teacher and repairing a building. 1995 George Musha, now head of Marafa Primary visited the UK, spending time at Yateley School and Westfields Primary. Two students from the Sixth form spent a week at Marafa Primary School. £300 raised to buy educational resources. 1996 Two further students visit Marafa Primary. £250 raised for educational resources bought locally. Three surplus microscopes from Yateley School were taken to Marafa. One given to the hospital for blood tests for malaria suffers. 1997 Three students taken to Marafa. £350 raised for resources. A container with electric typewriters and books was sent from Yateley School (with the help of British Gas PLC). Unfortunately due to massive corruption at Mombassa Port the goods were never released. We now know how to overcome this problem! 1998 Two students taken to Marafa. Yateley School raised £1000 to buy a generator for the Teachers' Advisory Centre (TAC), the first electricity of any sort in Marafa. The TAC was fully electrically wired. 1999 Three students taken to Marafa. Yateley School together with Fernhill School raised £2000 which purchased a photocopier to be used in the TAC by teachers from the 25 schools in the Marafa District. In addition sports equipment was taken out from England. 2000 Three students and teacher from Yateley
School visited Marafa. £800 was raised which purchased
a television and video for the TAC, used by teachers and the
local community for health education. 2002 The original generator was repaired and then donated to Marafa Hospital with funds provided for the electrical installation. Yateley School raised £900 which was spent in addition on repairs to the TAC (new windows and security measures). 2003 Two students visited Marafa. Yateley raised £1000 which started an improvement programme on the TAC. This involved building an extension to make the main meeting room larger and provide office space and a resources area. 2004 A further £1000 was raised to
continue the building work on the TAC. George Musha promoted
to be a District Inspector for Education in the Marafa Zone. 2005 Two students visited Marafa. £200 (because other funds were donated to the Tsunami appeal) was used to replace the video machine which by then was beyond economic repair. The Miller's arranged for the Elsa Conservation Trust to become involved in conservation education in the Marafa District. The Education Officer from their base at Elsamere in Naivasha, Kenya ran a number of courses and funds were provided by the Elsa Trust to provide gardening equipment for the Schools to undertake conservation work. 2006 Four students, a teacher from St Nicholas' School, Fleet, and a former sixth form student visited Marafa. In total a sum of £3200 was raised by Yateley School, St Nicholas's School and the local Guides. This was used to complete the building works on the TAC, including substantial underpinning to holt subsistence. In addition 100 plastic chairs and 12 tables (made locally in Marafa) were purchased for the main meeting room at the TAC to be used by the local community, teachers' courses and pupils from the local schools undertaking exams. Resources for the new centre included sports equipment, teachers' books and more gardening equipment. Money has been also been provided to employ an Administrative Assistant at the TAC who will supervise the resources collection, and administer the running of the TAC. This provided employment for a local lady. The Church of St Peter's in Yateley also raised the sum of £1500 which is being used to build the walls on the Anglican Church in Marafa which has been under construction for 10 years. 2007 Two students from Yateley School, a teacher from St Nicholas' School and her son a fireman visited Marafa. A total of £2000 was raised which funded the Administration Assistant for another year, purchased educational aids including mathematics equipment, calculators, textbooks, reading books, atlases, and sports equipment. In addition money was set aside for shelving and cupboards to store the resources and some for a toilet block for the Teachers' Centre. Donations to the Church included a lectern stands and a number of bibles and hymn books. |
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MARAFA TOWN Marafa town is a community of 3,500 people. It is located 40 km from the Indian Ocean coast of Kenya near the town of Malindi. The road to Marafa is a dirt road that becomes barely passable in times of rain. Local people have access to a local bus service (matatu) or bicycles to visit Malindi. Many local people in Marafa work in the holiday industry in Malindi. Marafa is a subsistence farming area. Most families have their own small farm (shamba) growing mostly maize and some vegetable. This forms the basic diet of the local people. There are few commercial crops but some pineapples are commercially grown. The success of agriculture in the area depends totally the rains. |
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Marafa has no electricity and communication with the outside world is dependent on a radiotelephone that frequently fails to work. Water comes from a bore-hole that depends on an ageing pump which again frequently fails. There is one main street in Marafa that contains a variety of small local shops. These include general stores, post office, several tailor shops, a second-hand clothes shop and a music shop selling religious pop music. The community has a hospital that has a nurse in charge and no resident doctor. Preventable diseases such as malaria, yellow fever and typhoid make the hospital busy. There are two schools in Marafa, the primary school (now free to all children) and a secondary school where fees, beyond most people's capability, are charged. Most of the people in Marafa live in small, wattle and darb houses. Many live in small family communities sharing the land around them. Our experience visiting Marafa over a number of years is that the people are amongst the friendliest and most welcoming that you could expect to meet. The small contribution that has been made to their life from Yateley is greatly appreciated and has made a substantial difference. |
   
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