African Adventures - Kenya 2018 - Laura Washington

Laura Washington Start Date: Oct 27, 2017 - End Date: Feb 26, 2018
  • Nakuru County, Kenya

My Travel Story

by: Laura Washington Start Date: Oct 27, 2017 - End Date: Feb 26, 2018
Hi all, my name is Laura Washington and I am 17 years old, recently I have been offered an amazing opportunity to travel to Kenya with a volunteer travel company called African Adventure to volunteer at schools in the developing community, in this role I will be assisting with teaching, sports and building work. This is an amazing opportunity to assist with a truly worthwhile cause and to help children receive an education in an underprivileged area. As well as being an amazing cause this opportunity would really assist with my future career and look amazing on my university application!!. The trip itself costs a lot of money with a lot of the cost going direct to the school for building materials. I have already started to collect funding from my close family and friends and am contributing my own money that I have earned over the summer to contribute to this trip, any additional help would be muchly appreciated even if you can only spare a pound then it really would assist with this truly fantastic project.
Project Summary

 

African Adventures began working with Hadassah Mission School in 2009 and our volunteers were heavily involved with the construction of the new school following relocation. Since the partnership was established, African Adventures and our charity, African Adventures Foundation, have helped to fund micro-finance initiatives. These include a chair and tent hire business, and a shop, which will be constructed in late 2016 and will help cover some of the project’s core running costs.

Hadassah supports families in Mwariki by providing a feeding programme and free education. Although free at the point of entry, government schools are required to charge associated fees for items like books, uniforms and desks. Most families in the area survive on as little as 70p per day so cannot afford these costs. They therefore rely on projects like Hadassah to provide both a daily nutritious meal and an education for their children.

Between 2015 and 2016, African Adventures volunteers played a key role in renovating existing classrooms and bringing them up to government standard, in order to establish Hadassah as a ‘private’ school. This has allowed the school to hold onsite examinations (instead of paying for the students to be examined at a government school elsewhere, at significant cost). Incidentally, Hadassah has been ranked in the top 10 for performance in the area.

With an increasing number of students enrolling at Hadassah Mission School each year, in 2017 Geoffrey (who runs the school) aims to locate some of the school’s primary students to a new site with a larger school playground.


 

  • Nakuru County, Kenya