This is it! The final Kisii summer blog update. All the project workers are now safely back in the Kisii house, most preparing to return to the UK over the weekend, while the lucky few are planning further Kenyan travels. It’s been a very busy week, with PWs working hard to finish their school investments and initiatives despite a teachers’ strike a total absence of students.Meanwhile the coordinators have been finishing their school selection visits and pastoral visits. We’ve finally been able to select two schools to put forward to additional funding from the Canadian organisation Global Education Fund (GEF), one for a girls’ dormitory and the other for a a girls’ abutions block.
We also observed a careers day run by a new Kisii based NGO called Youth Focus in Tendere school. The group bring volunteer students from universities around Kenya together to speak on careers, motivation, health and life skills at district schools – therefore following a similar theme to some of KEP’s PoDs. Despite a lack of students the day went remarkably well and we hope with further structural refinements will be able to work with the group again next year.Since we ran out of time at the mid-summer meeting to properly discuss KEP strategy, we also held a short strategy meeting on Saturday afternoon with around 10 of the PWs. It was based on key questions such as; is KSH200,000 enough investment? Is KEP sustainable? How can we improve training/recruitment etc. We had some very interesting and creative feedback from the PWs which will flow into next year’s strategy meetings to improve our Kenyan summers.
On the final night we organised a group dinner and tuskers at our favourite ‘Sailors café’ which was a great end to another sucessful (and eventful!) summer.
Fiona, Kisii PM Second Half