MAGNET SCHOOL
The boys were welcomed at Magnet School after their long journey.
There is a sense of forward movement with Magnet. In general, there are more buildings, more teachers, more students and more resources than two years ago. The school currently has about 110 primary and 220 secondary pupils. Only 94 students are day pupils, leaving about 226 pupils as boarders. There is a large new accommodation block for guests that is where the foundations for the primary boy orphans was in 2013. The library is incomplete but the main shell is there. Bishop Kibobi has given me estimates for its completion which total £3586 to complete the Senior school library and £9145 to complete the whole thing, which includes a junior school library and some useful areas for staff. The boarding boys, both junior and senior, live in what was just the boys' dorm block and the girls in the girls' dorm block. Food is a permanent issue, with feeding about 350 people three meals a day a constant concern. DC raised some money (£400) which went towards their immediate food shortage. They need £1000 a month to feed everyone!
Chickens
The boys have a huge poultry project with 1000 chickens! They collect 750 eggs a day and the boys in charge of the chickens sell the eggs which go towards fees. Sadly the pupils do not get eggs very often in a meal.
Computers
Bishop Kibobi received ten refurbished laptops from the charity run by Barry Gooden. They were warmly received. Computers do help raise the profile of the school and help the youngsters to get online.
Overall, Magnet is currently well organised and certainly showing development.
MAPED
We were very warmly welcomed on our first evening. Everyone was there including Peter, Johannes and Jona (key persons in the NGO). Maliaki met us in Arusha and guided our Kenyan driver. We camped where we have done before and unloaded our vast supplies which included 200 litres of water which proved to be about 40 litres short. We brought £5 pp pn for the project and £400 raised by the boys. This went towards completing two teacher houses. We found them in good spirits and making progress. Maliaki's house and Peter's boma has been separated from the rest of the village by a road, which is certainly a new development. The government have laid a road and they are bringing electricity, which will certainly change the feel of the place.
The school has developed in the sense of the buildings, with more classrooms and a nearly completed teachers' block. They currently have four staff but are short staffed and finding it difficult to cover each of the four classes adequately. Leonard Isaac is currently the school manager and says how challenging the conditions are although they are optimistic if more funds become available.
The teachers are keen to push the school forward although they need resources to do so. There is a daily assembly and an organised timetable. The school currently has a Reception and years 1-3. They hope to take this up to year 7 in due course and have the full primary range. Local Maasai families choose to send their children there if they agree with the MAPED ideals of educating the young to give them a brighter future.
One thing they are desperate for is books. I hope it might become possible to send Maliaki some money soon to buy new books for the new academic year.
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They are still registering the school, which has passed stage two or four. They hope by October to be a fully registered school.
The school needs a maize grinder so that the school children can eat ugali rather than just porridge or be sent home for lunch.
Computers
Maliaki was given £1500 for his computing course from WWSL. This will help him in running the NGO. We also gave two of Barry's laptops to MAPED. One to Maliaki which he is using in Arusha and one to Peter who teaches computing - although one wonders at this stage how that is possible!
The government are apparently impressed by the school endeavours, although have no money to support. The Maasai singing was again amazing as we sat under an incredible starry sky around the camp fire. They cooked us goat and rice as well as chips. There was a tremendous spirit of community and they were sad to see us go.
Our final destination, the Janwani hotel in Dar, was just right for the boys - beach, pools, some night life and a tropical island to visit. Medium cost with helpful staff. Above all, a safe environment for the boys to enjoy some RnR.
In summary, the trip was a great success and was fully engaged by the boys. The feedback from the boys was very positive and they seemed to appreciate the variety of the two projects and the balance of the itinerary.
