Easter Report

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We do not have a television, but we understand that anyone who does must have witnessed the most horrifying scenes of violence in the wake of last December’s disputed election in Kenya. It so happened that, while reports were coming in of the carnage in Kenya, we were reading Magnus Magnusson’s Scotland: The Story of a Nation. The violence in Scotland that pitted clan against clan and Catholic against Protestant was quite as deadly and went on for centuries before a stable country, linked in union with England, eventually emerged. Hopefully the new nation of Kenya will not take as long as Scotland did to grow into a peaceful, stable and prosperous country!
Those of you who have been helping the Got Matar Community to build its new Secondary School will be relieved to hear that the area it serves remained quiet although tense in January and February. The school began its second year of classes two weeks late, towards the end of January, but is now operating normally. The second block of classrooms and the library had been completed and furnished with desks before Christmas. Enrolment for the new Form One has been better than expected, considering the unrest and the related rise in the prices of basic goods: at the beginning of March 2008, 143 of the 150 new places had already been filled. What this means is the school is developing in line with the goal set by the community in October 2006 to increase its capacity by 150 places per year. They now have space for 300 students and so are half way to the target of 600 children set for the beginning of 2010. The priority for this year is to build a third block of general purpose classrooms, but, if we can raise sufficient resources, it would be enormously helpful to complete a science laboratory and a practical skills training workshop. The Community is also keen to construct a small girl’s hostel to enable girls from outlying communities to stay overnight on weekdays and avoid walking to and from the school in the danger of darkness.

Many people in Europe and North America express serious doubts about supporting a project such as this because they believe that their money will go astray and nothing will be achieved. I hope that they will now look again at what has been done by the Got Matar Community over the past 18 months. The speed and efficiency with which they have moved to get the school operating and already up to half of its planned capacity, with very limited funds, is impressive by any standards.

Perhaps the education provided by a school such as this will contribute in its own small way to a peaceful future for Kenya – and our shared world in general!

Andrew MacMillan
Easter Day 2008