Dear Friends and Supporters

We are pleased once again to send you our news from Enaikishomi School after our recent visit.

Edward and Sandy

Edward and Sandy Elgar together with their daughter Catherine, her husband Tim and their children, Eloise, Josh and Rose visited Enaikishomi School in late October of this year. Unfortunately, owing to some miscommunication, we were not made aware that the School was closed during our visit for national exams!

Sadly, therefore, we were not able to meet with the teachers and pupils as in previous years. However, the Headteacher, Mathew Munyi made a special effort and we had a long and productive meeting with him at the school on Sunday 29th October.

There have been significant developments during the last year. Enaikishomi has been designated by Lewa as a pioneer school to demonstrate the benefits of digital teaching and standard blackboards have been replaced by Spectron screens linked to the internet.

There are around fifty/sixty tablets (linked to the Spectrons ) shared by the students. This amazing initiative has been supported by the digital learning team at Lewa who have visited the School on a weekly basis to provide hands on instruction to the teachers to make the best use of this new technology.

This pioneering development at Enaikishomi was featured on national television as you can see in this video:

We were very pleased to see that the water kiosk has been modified so that the local community can purchase water using Mpesa on their mobile phones. There are obvious advantages in eliminating cash transactions whilst enabling the locals to access water at a time of their choice.

A new government initiative has been to provide electricity to the area, including to Enaikishomi School. This is not yet operating but it will be good to have another source of energy in addition to solar power.

At first sight, the garden appeared less tidy and well tended than on previous visits. The reason became apparent during our meeting with the headmaster. The garden is now an important part of the learning experience and is being used to teach the children the basics of agriculture.

Each class has a parcel of land and within that parcel, the plants are watered and cared for by an individual or groups of children. It is remarkable that the garden has survived very well during the severe drought of the last three years. There is also an impressive nursery where plants are grown from seeds or cuttings for distribution to the local community.

During the last year the AET funded the construction of two new teachers houses, bringing the total to eighteen units for seventeen teachers and Dan, the handyman who is in charge of maintenance. There are many advantages in all the teachers enjoying resident status on the school grounds. Suffice to say that Enaikishomi does not suffer from the levels of absenteeism prevalent in other schools!

During the past year, a new play area has been constructed for nursery and reception children.

This includes a rabbit hutch awaiting pet rabbits for the children.

We were delighted to learn that in the current “war on waste”, the railings for the nursery area were made from the shutters removed from the first classroom built in 2004.

Indeed, we were also pleased to see other re-cycling initiatives such as the filing boxes made from cardboard packaging and the rubbish collecting dustpans from leaking plastic containers.

The tailoring project has had its ups and downs over the years. The challenges have been to employ good tailoring tutors and to ensure full, continuing attendance by the adult women students. After some discussion with the women, it has been decided that the current tailoring tutor, who can only work one day per week during term time, will instruct the older pupils. The Headmaster will manage this new initiative.

We were delighted to be introduced to the new music teacher, Kenneth. We agreed that the AET would fund the purchase of an electric piano which will provide accompaniment for the school choir as well as instruction for the musically gifted children.

Conclusion

We are delighted that Enaikishomi is in good shape providing high quality education to about 258 children under the direction of the excellent and committed Headmaster, Mathew Munyi.In terms of future projects, we are keen to explore the possible development of vocational training to provide practical skills such as plumbing, bricklaying, electrical engineering, car mechanics etc.   We had a guided tour of the Polytechnic at the local village of Ethi which offers courses in all these areas. Lewa has kindly agreed to do a feasibility study to establish a possible link between Enaikishomi and the Polytechnic.

With many thanks for your continuing support which is greatly appreciated by Enaikishomi School and the surrounding community.

Edward and Sandy Elgar
Trustees of the Amy Elgar Trust
Charity Registration No.: 1144222