About one hundred children have attended school since the start of the school academic year, Jan 2013. There have been 36 new admissions. Relocation of families to two farmland areas called Subukia and Njoro has resulted in the attendance drop. Plans are underway to send some of the recently trained teachers from the Community to at least one of the sites (Njoro) and to ask the building team to create a simple new school in this region.
The seven to eight year old children that were in our supplementary classroom during the last academic year have now found placement in the local Primary schools around the area. The six year olds that left to go to Primary school from the Children’s House have also found placements. Some of these children were able to attend Standard 2 instead of Standard 1, skipping a class, as they were deemed well ahead of their peers from other pre-schools.
The Montessori Elementary Program for Corner of Hope is still in the planning stages and is hoped that it will be underway at the latest by Jul/Aug 2013 starting with 2 pre-course “core” modules. The program has been delayed due to the School Registration challenges that have been faced at Corner of HopeIt has now become necessary to employ someone to carry out a regular survey of the repair and maintenance work that is needed in the school building and compound as well as to oversee the work. For example, paint work and roof maintenance as well looking after the school compound grounds overall, and overseeing any landscaping work that needs to be done. This will also include planting vegetables and flowers in long troughs around the school compound, which the children can help look after. The Coordinator that has overseen the building of the school has been offered this responsibility, and he has happily accepted.
The eight new trainee teachers under the mentorship of the first trained teachers from the camp are doing well in their teaching practice and are working hard to finish making all their materials.
All the teachers at Corner of Hope are very happy and excited as they have been invited to participate in a puppetry event organized by UNESCO. The children and teachers will take part in a creating a culturally based puppetry show based on a “culture of peace” theme. Short videos of this show will be made and submitted for the event that will be held at UNESCO to celebrate the annual International Day of Peace, September 21, 2013.
Seven houses for the community have now been built and are occupied by the teachers and their families. Two more houses will be commenced shortly, followed by eight more thereafter. The community has chosen the families that will be the recipients of the housing. They started by choosing the teachers first, followed by the people who helped to build the school, and lastly families that they have voted as the most needy (children with special needs).
A community based organization ‘Self Help Group’ will be registered through the offices of the Social Welfare Program of the Diocese. The Group will operate under the auspices of the Corner of Hope Co-operative programme and will provide income generation and an incentive to financially support the school and enable long – term sustainability.
The Community will participate in skill based income generation activities under this umbrella and make a contribution towards the school through this organization. The Self Help Group will thus be a stakeholder in the school and will benefit from PR and Marketing at a national and international level through Corner of Hope. The school will own equipment such as brick making machines, jigsaws, bicycles, sewing machines, knitting machines and so forth.
A social worker from the Social Welfare Program of the Diocese has been on the ground to meet with members of the Community and has been requested to put together a proposal outlining the components of organizing and running the Group. The Community has already selected a steering committee for this purpose.