2024 End-of-Year Letter from Grace and Andrew (December 2024)
Dear Friends of Got Matar,
Over 20 years have passed since the Got Matar Community Development Group (GMCDG) formed itself with the main aim of ensuring that all young children, including many orphans whose parents were dying in large numbers of HIV/AIDS, should be assured a decent education. This would be an essential element in restoring an active and increasingly prosperous community, but it would require a long-term commitment.
Around the turn of the century when Grace Ochieng Andiki (who inspired the Group} and I first met, the educational system in the Got Matar area of Bondo District consisted of 10 largely dilapidated primary schools, some of which also offered basic nursery schooling. Even without the added burden of the AIDS epidemic, a lot of children never went to school at all or started attending when they were already in their early teens. Many of those who went through primary school had no further educational opportunities because there was no secondary school to which they could go within reach of their homes.
In my 2023 end-of-year letter https://www.gotmatar.org/got-matar-annual-letter-2023/ I provided a short summary of the remarkable achievements of the GMCDG over the 21 years since its foundation. Briefly, thanks to the efforts of the CDG and its donors, as well as to a highly engaged government of Kenya, the local educational system has been completely transformed. As the Community had intended from the outset, all young people can now get first class education in well-equipped buildings within easy reach of their homes.
GMCDG translated its vision into reality, beginning by refurbishing most of the primary schools and related nursery schools between 2002 and 2006. Since then more classrooms have been built with local funding, enabling primary school attendance to rise from 1,874 2002 to 4,700 now.
In 2006 the Community began to implement its plan to construct and initially run a secondary school for 600 pupils, opening new classrooms and other facilities for an intake of 150 new pupils in each of the next 4 years. Its first wave of graduates left in 2010. Further investments were made in the following years in laboratories and sanitation and the Community has continued with donor support to fund a small scholarship programme. With additional finance, raised locally, the secondary school, now run by the Department of Education, has reached an intake of almost 400 students per year.
The third element in the Community’s programme has been the creation of an Institute of Technology (IoT), aimed at enabling young people to acquire practical skills which are in growing demand in Kenya including in the surrounding area. This began experimentally in 2012 with sewing courses being offered in the Women’s Centre and expanded into other courses, each beginning in rented buildings. Given their success, in 2015 the CDG decided to create a permanent campus for the IoT on which it has been constructing purpose-built training workshops for each of the 11 courses on offer. Almost all funding raised by the Community from donors and local sources is now being used for the enhancement and expansion of the IoT with the aim that it should operate as a financially self-sustaining enterprise that is owned and run by the Community.
This is the first end-of-year letter to be authored jointly by Grace Ochieng Andiki (founder of GMCDG and now its Programme Coordinator) and me as her voluntary fund-raiser. We begin with a summary of the main actions taken during this year by GMCDG, thanks in part to the generosity of donors,
We then reflect about the apparent impact that the improved educational system is having on the lives of students and the wider community.
Finally, we present a description of recent developments in considerable detail.
For those readers that may not be interested in such detail, our main message is that 2024 has been a very good year for the IoT during which all new training workshops are now in full use and construction of a large multipurpose meeting room is nearing completion. Important changes in curricula have also been introduced to greatly increase their practical skills training components.
2024
As in recent times, most donor funding during 2024 has been applied to the construction and equipment of new buildings on the IoT campus.
Business Centre Hall.
With the completion in December 2023 of the training workshops for electricians and for plumbers, which together form the ground floor of the first 2-storey building on the IoT campus, each of the 10 courses had its own building. At the beginning of the year, furnishing and installation of new equipment was undertaken, enabling classes to begin in March. These courses are now attended by 39 full time electricians (of whom 9 are female) and 15 aspiring plumbers (6 female). A total of 387 students in all subjects now attend the IoT.
The main building project this year has been to create a large multipurpose meeting room (named Business Centre Hall) on the floor above these two new workshops. Priority has been given to this because of the need to nurture the integrity of the IoT as a training institution that not only teaches valuable skills but enables staff and students to share their experiences and to understand how they can most effectively contribute to the economic and social development of the surrounding area and beyond. Its presence will encourage behavior that will draw students and staff from different disciplines together as stakeholders in the IoT as a whole. It will also serve as a venue for activities that will engage the IoT more fully with other organizations which are also strongly committed to local development.
Initially the IoT will give precedence to using the new hall for school gatherings and particularly for providing space for the growing population of boarding and nearby students to come together for evening recreational activities. It will also serve as the home for a new programme of evening classes aimed at helping them to understand how their newly acquired skills can fit into the wider development context. Already 120 girls are boarding in a new hostel and a similar number of boys will be accommodated in a new dormitory due to be completed in 2025 (see below). This will mean that around half of the IoT’s intended students will be able benefit from supplementary training outside normal school hours.
The new Business Centre (see 2025, below) will be based in a corner of the hall.
Construction of the new hall, which will be largely self-sufficient in electricity and water supplies, began with a lot of student participation in July this year as soon as the Berfred Foundation had informed us of its decision to commit just over Euro 21,400 to the project. Additional contributions, amounting to almost Euro 29,000 from ‘traditional’ donors (including donations made via Ace Africa and La Karibu ONLUS) have already, been received over the last few months, enabling this prestigious building to be completed without delay by the end of this month.
Refurbishing Buildings and Equipment.
A report on the IoT by government inspectors in 2023 criticised the condition of some of the buildings and pointed to a growing need to renew tools used in practical work, taking advantage of new models.
This led to the creation in early 2024 of new arrangements for identifying and funding needs to keep the IoT structures in good shape and provided with adequate equipment. While this will become a normal part of the IoT’s annual budget the immediate needs were met by the use of donor-funded resources, amounting to Euro 10,000.
Boosting Share of Practical Work in the Curriculum
In June all IoT teachers attended a week-long on-site course, run by a highly competent team of trainers from the national Technical and Vocational Training Authority (TVETA). This was designed to enable the IoT to strengthen the hands-on practical work component of the curriculum by increasing its share of teaching time from 50 to 80%, bringing it in line with national policies for ‘competence-based education training’ (CBET).
This change has been strongly welcomed by the IoT and is expected to increase the skills and employability of its students. Donors contributed to the costs of running the course and also to the purchase of extra equipment for the training workshops so as to enable the improvements to be taken on board during the year.
Towards Financial Sustainability.
From the beginning of the IoT, the GMCDG decided that, if feasible, it should be run as a community-owned enterprise that would seek donor assistance for the creation of new assets but eventually cover its operating expenses from its income. At present, income slightly exceeds two thirds of total operating costs. The gap, which is donor funded, is diminishing.
The two main sources of income are students’ tuition fees (about Euro 50 per person per year) and the sales of goods and services produced by staff and students, using the IoT’s facilities.
Any increase in fees would probably cut student numbers, and so, to become more viable, the IoT is taking steps to increase the number of pupils. These include providing part-time courses at a lower cost and increasing boarding capacity, which enables students to attend from a wider radius, and, as noted, improving the curriculum and conditions for practical training. They are also increasing the engagement of students and staff in construction projects, enabling them to gain more practical experience and to supplement their incomes.
During the year, the IoT has retained a volunteer to explore means for increasing income from sales. The main constraint is limited demand because of the relative poverty of the surrounding population, but we hope to make progress on this front in 2025.
Broadening Sources of Investment Support.
Until now much of the funding for GMCDG’s investment programmes has come from individuals and trusts based in Britain, Italy and Switzerland. There are signs that support in the UK is falling, largely because of the advancing age of traditional donors! This decline has been offset by increasing donations in Italy, thanks largely to the initiatives of a Turin-based family and the cooperation of an Italian-registered educational charity with operations in Kenya (La Karibu ONLUS).
Several US donors have been contributing to Got Matar but it looks as though more American support could come if donors could get tax rebates on their donations. To explore this option GMCDG has been in touch with Global Giving (GG) which helps to mobilise support for communities and NGOs working on human development mainly in developing countries. This year, GG accepted GMCDG as a member and it has already submitted two funding requests.
Former students are supporting 34 bursary students at the secondary school and steps are being taken to expand this programme as more and more alumni enter employment.
The Got Matar Website www.gotmatar.org
The website was kindly set up and continually updated by Charles Ellis (Andrew’s brother-in-law), with the main intent of keeping donors and other interested parties informed on the plans and achievements of the programme. During this year, GMCDG has assumed responsibility for the website and we suggest that you look at the new material that has been posted. This includes short biographies of over 100 alumni who track their education and jobs and share reflections on the educational system. It also provides guidance on making donations to the Community Development Group.
2025
Much of what has been started this year will be carried forward into 2025.
The immediate top priority is to take exceptional measures to increase the number of new students being enrolled in the IoT, in response to recent government reforms in secondary education that could otherwise seriously limit the number of applicants this year. The Community has decided to seek to boost applications by immediately offering free education to qualified new students during their first term in 2025, The immediate extra cost (which have already been met by donors) will have the longer-term effect of raising the total number of fee-paying students and hence of reducing future donor dependence even when operating costs are expected to rise to meet the added cost of the additional teaching staff for the most popular courses.
Serious and early attention will also be given by GMCDG to completing legal processes and documents that assure its ownership of all of lands assigned to it and of the assets that it has created since its foundation. These investments are considerable and precedents suggest that, in the absence of an unambiguous proof of ownership and managerial responsibilities, they could be subject to attempted misappropriation.
The most challenging institutional task, however, will be to launch the IoT Business Centre. While there is a strong commitment in both the CDG and the IoT to engage in promoting the emergence of new businesses for the application of many of the skills acquired at IoT, the details of its work programme, governance and staffing still need to be worked out. The selection of a suitable initial leader for the centre and the creation of an advisory panel, involving banks and leading local businesses to guide its evolution will be important tasks for the IoT manager and board and the CDG programme coordinator.
Related to this is the need to define arrangements for running and maintaining the new hall, so as to bring it quickly into the fullest possible use. This could require agreement on a statement of purpose and the appointment of part-time staff to schedule and manage its use. Whoever is assigned these duties should presumably also be responsible for overseeing the final stages of furnishing and equipping the new hall. This may call for additional donor funding.
During the course of 2025 the website will be enhanced by the inclusion of new elements that will enable students and staff to contribute inputs, and will provide information to aspiring students on opportunities for enrolment. Once the Business Centre starts operating it will have its own section.
In terms of construction, it is already agreed by all parties that the priority for 2025 is to build and put into use the proposed IoT Boys’ Dormitory. GMCDG had given priority to opening the girls’ hostel first so as to reinforce female attendance at the IoT. However, there has been a lot of pressure from boys to replace their temporary shelter (capacity 45) with a permanent and larger building. Plans have been prepared and an application for assistance (amounting to about Euro 72,500) has already been lodged with Global Giving. However, if the building is to be brought into use in 2025, additional funds will probably have to be sought from ‘traditional’ donors.
The Human Impact of Got Matar’s Education Programme
All of our reporting so far has concentrated on telling donors what we have done with their money and on how many students are entering and leaving the schools that we have built.
It seems pretty obvious that anyone who attends good schools ends up with a decent education and will do better in life than someone who never attended school or left at an early stage. The gains, whether for the individual or for the community and nation, are, however, difficult to measure because so many circumstances are changing at the same time.
A good education may lead to superior employment opportunities, but we cannot say how much of the benefits are attributable to education rather than, for instance, access to roads, to clean water, or a balanced diet.
There has been a steady growth in the number of students at both the secondary school and the IoT over the past 5 years, and this has been matched by an encouraging increase in the proportion of female pupils in each institution.
At the secondary school, the total number of students rose from 788 in 2020 to an amazing 1,357 in 2024. With almost equal numbers of girls and boys. in the same period the total number of students at the IoT grew from 227 to 387, with the number of girls more than doubling from 103 to 225.This massive enhancement of the gender balance is due largely to the heavy investments made by the CDG in a nursery for the young children of staff and students as well as in a hostel for 120 girls that was completed in 2023.
Following a recent meeting with former students of the various components of the Got Matar education system, we have started to assemble an inventory of all alumni Thiods will generate indicators of the quality of education provided, by looking at the grades attained in the primary and secondary schools final exams over the years, and how these compare with those of other nearby schools.
We have tried to contact most former pupils to ask them to summarise what they are now doing in terms of work, and to tell us about how they each think their attendance in our schools has affected their lives and also benefited other people.
All responses, of which we have already received over 100, will be copied onto the website and be subject to analysis by a small voluntary group of alumni for inclusion in next year’s letter.
Donations
There are various easy ways of making donations to Got Matar. These are explained on the website at https://www.gotmatar.org/donations/
Donations are usually used to finance the construction of new facilities and to buy training equipment, as planned by CMCDG.
If you are interested, however, in making a particular contribution to specific aspects of the programme, we suggest that you contact Grace (ochienggrace2012@gmail.com) directly to discuss options that would meet both parties’ aspirations.
For instance, one regular donor agreed with Grace that it would be excellent if she would make a donation towards planting trees in the IoT campus. Two Italian donors from the same family have paid for the full costs of building and equipping the Car Mechanics and Electricians training workshops! Similarly, the BERFRED Foundation has targeted its considerable funding on improving conditions for female students at the IoT by building a nursery for young children as well as a hostel for girls. An English family has committed itself to funding the secondary school’s scholarship programme and an Australian NGO designed and paid for construction of a girls’ dormitory at the secondary school.