Goals

A new classroom was ‘officially’ opened on 25 January 2006 with a massive student increase. To accommodate this increase we now have two sessions a day. The 5 year olds (approx. 110 students) come for the morning session and the 6 year olds (approx. 100 students) arrive for the afternoon session. Each session is served ‘uji’ (a maize porridge with sugar and oil) after their lessons. This is the only food that they would eat during the day – so if they didn’t come to school, they wouldn’t eat until evening. The children love this food – maize (ground corn) is the staple diet of the Maasai people. Per month, we use 80kg of maize, 25kg of sugar and 12 litres of cooking oil to make the ‘uji’ and it costs approximately USD$150 for these supplies and to pay someone to cook for all 210 students.

We have also sewn each child their own school uniform. The uniforms were made courtesy of another project of ours that allows women with disabled children to stay at home and earn an income by creating a sewing business for themselves. There are currently four women who we have provided with their own sewing machine and sewing equipment.

Update on Ilkurot Nursery School

2007 has been a successful year for us at Ilkurot – with the ability to purchase more than 1000 textbooks to allow the students to actually have something that guides their studies.  Also we have plastered the outside of 4 classrooms and fit into class windows (one side only).  Previously, there were wooden windows in place – meaning that when the wind blew in this dusty place, an almost daily occurance, the windows needed to be closed which blocked any form of light entering the classrooms.  Needless to say, no light / no write.

We employed on of Tinga Tinga artists, who supplies wares to Afrika Ink and also carried out our painting lessons for clients, to go and stay in the village for two weeks and paint murals and educational drawings on the newly plastered walls.  In Ilkurot, the scenery is bland and the school grounds were excessively so, thus this new splash of colour has truly lifted spirits and allowed the students to enjoy coming to their school.

In 2007, we also planted almost 500 trees in an effort to cut down the dust that does fly and cause so many eye infections and dry coughs.  We hope that as we enter 2008, we are able to put more water tanks in place to water the trees so that they can grow and make a marked difference in the school environment.

In July and August, we were lucky enough to have Andy and Kelly onboard to construct a playground for the children.  A first in the school, a first in the village, a first in the district and only one of a few in the outskirts of Arusha.  This has enabled the children to include sports education into their curriculum by way of a basic football pitch, netball court and volleyball court.  Also balance beams, monkeys bars and climbing frames are being used for the nursery school to encouragement gross motor skills, counting, and other social skills.  We are very grateful for this to have happened.

Current & Future Plans