Shared name brings hope of better future for Africa school

The children from Swanland School in Nairobi, Kenya, live 4,000 miles from their counterparts in East Yorkshire and in radically different circumstances.

For the past nine years the school in Africa has been able to count on the support of a small band of supporters in East Yorkshire and beyond who have been raising funds to cover running costs.

But it has become more of a struggle with rising food prices to contend with and the group has now been launched as a charity with the aim of putting the school – which is close to the Kibera Slum, Africa’s largest slum – on a more sustainable footing.

It was a gap year visit by Ruth Waters, whose parents John and Shirley run Swanland Nurseries, that sparked interest in the school nine years ago.

“We went to see what she’d been doing,” recalled Mrs Waters. “We were actually really shocked. It was in quite a bad area next to Kibera. The thing that struck me was that the children didn’t have anything to eat or drink from 9am to 4pm.

“I had a bath when I first came home and I thought there was more water in that bath than all those kids had to drink.

“I mentioned it to the church, the school and village association because John and I had decided we would pay for water. Then friends said they’d pay for bananas and within months we had a full feeding programme. When Ruth was there, there were about 100 kids, quite scruffy. They’d be wearing odd shoes, some no shoes.

“Once we’d started giving free food we ended up having 200, 300 or 400 and after a year we had 500. Some of our really good friends, a doctor and a lawyer, went to live in Nairobi and we knew every penny was being spent on the children.”

Disaster struck seven years ago when the school was burned down following a land dispute, but well-wishers raised £34,000 to rebuild it in a better site.

However food prices have gone up six times in recent years and numbers at the school, which consists of classrooms with corrugated tin roofs with dirt floors, and separate sections for housing orphaned boys and girls looking onto a main courtyard, have fallen to 200 – simply because headteacher Pastor Hudson Kuyanda hasn’t enough money to feed more.

Mrs Waters said: “At the moment all we can afford is ugali – maize flour – and fried cabbage, which is a bit boring .

“John and I have been making sure that £3,000 goes out every month, but we need to send £5,000 a month which would educate 100 more children.”

Chairman of the trust Richard Swain is also a governor at Swanland Primary School, which raises funds and sends sweatshirts to the school in Africa, and South Hunsley School.

He said: “The school itself is like a little oasis in the middle of a slum area.

“The living conditions are just so basic compared to what we experience and yet they recognise they are getting an education, a chance to change their lives, and it is such a privilege to be part of that.”

He added: “We felt the time was right to set up a registered charity with a website, Facebook and online giving to ensure we had a more long-term set-up.

“We are asking people to pay £15 a month – about the price of a Mars Bar a day. If you get lots of people giving relatively small amounts it can put the school on a more sustainable footing.

“If you keep fundraising and fundraising it’s hard work for those few people and I want to start thinking strategically for the school.”

Mr Swain said they had already started supporting a new school in Kakamega, Pastor Hudson’s home town, which is in a much more rural area.

The trust already provides bursaries for higher education but in future they want to extend that to include apprenticeships and even micro-businesses.

Unlike some charities, virtually all the money people give goes directly to the school in Nairobi, with no middle-man or administration costs. Donors can also see the recipients and the effect of their giving through photos, diary updates and the website.

Mr Swain said: “People often think when they give money it’s throwing money into a pit. But the money they give us goes directly into paying teachers’ salaries or feeding children.”

Mrs Waters said: “I once asked a teacher, Mr Gibbons, if the school wasn’t here where would these children be. He said, ‘They’d be dead.’ It’s a bit of an overstatement, but a lot wouldn’t be alive. It is the only hope they have got.”

PUPILS LIVE IN SLUM CONDITIONS

Swanland School Nairobi is in Kawangware Slum, next to the Kibera Slum, Africa’s largest slum, a teeming place crammed with hundreds of thousands of people – some say a million people – recently visited by Lenny Henry and Angela Rippon for Comic Relief.

Several events will be running over the summer in support of the Swanland Education Africa Trust.

Hessle Theatre Company is holding a charity concert on Tuesday, July 19, at St Barnabas Church, Swanland.

More information can be found at: www.swanlandschoolnairobi.org and http://www.facebook.com/swanlandschoolnairobi. For online giving – https://mydonate.bt.com/charities/swanlandschoolnairobi.