KIURANI SCHOOL - KENYA

Herb and Bev Liberman presented an overview of their close participation and its impact on the Kiurani School in Chorogia, Kenya

 

For many years our Club has been providing scholarships for students at the Kiurani School in Kenya. Each $250 allows a student to participate fully in the school for an entire academic year. The school has approximately 300 students, of whom 60-70% are boarders which greatly facilitates their studies by providing safe housing, adequate nutrition, and relief of the burden of travel to and from school on a daily basis, which can take up to 1 1/2-2 hours  each way for some students. The school is part of a government run program, but is severely underfunded.

 

In addition to the students, it is not uncommon for family members to come and live near the school so they may help with the numerous gardens and other self-sustaining projects that help keep the costs at the school affordable.

English is the official language of the school, and all classes are taught in that language. The second most common languages are Swahili and there are numerous tribal dialects spoken amongst the students. Most of the students are from the Kikuyu tribe.

 

Beverly read several thank you letters written by the students who are in the secondary grades to those members who have sponsored them over their years of education. The use of English, the penmanship, and the thought that went into these letters was truly astounding and mature.

 

Students are allowed to progress on to university, which is funded by the state, if they score well on examinations given throughout the country on the same day each year. This year three women have gone on to university as a result of the education they received. This is a remarkably high number for such a small school. The school is in the top three academically in its district of the country.

 

When Herb traveled to present the “Little Sun”, solar powered reading lamps, he presented them on a day when school was on vacation. Over 400 students came on that vacation day in their school uniforms to see if they would be one of the lucky 300 to receive the lights

 

Although funding does come from numerous other sources, our Rotary Club has been instrumental in providing water storage tanks to harvest runoff from the frequent rains making it less tedious to procure water for activities each day..

 

Your donations, our Rotary Club, and Rotary International have made a significant impact on this little segment of population in Kenya that is likely to produce leaders for their society for years to come. Herb and Beverly are to be praised and commended for their efforts, and all other members in the Club are encouraged to follow their example if possible in providing scholarship money for the students.