One Brick at a Time – we are building a school

 

“My Goal is to improve the living standard of Maasai families on our land by making sure that all our kids can attend school. Our dream is to have a complete primary school up to grade 8 and maybe even a high school.”

Kiranto Daniel Nabaala

Kiranto Daniel Nabaala, worked as a teacher before he studied to become a silver level tour guide and Maasai cultural teacher and trainer in the Maasai Mara and a community leader in the Lemek area.

How it all started and where we are today

  • In January 2016 Kirantos Sunshine Academy was launched under a tree with a blackboard and 10 children attending. Very quickly the number of pupils increased to more than 70 and the village community employed 4 teachers. Classes were still held under the trees to protect the children from the African sun.

  • In June 2016 Daniel and his friends started a social media campaign to raise funds and start realizing their dream. Shortly afterwards Angela and Sabine, who already met Daniel on several occasions during safaris in the Masaai Mara, agreed to support his efforts to build a school. Angela, who at that time lived in Nairobi, started to manage the campaign and the first 2 classrooms were completed by the end of 2016.

  • With the help of our partner BeyondWater Global, an Australian NGO, latrines were installed, a requirement to register the school with the Kenyan authorities.

  • 2017 we added 2 additional classrooms

  • 2018 BeyondWater Global provided guttering, a water collection system and water tank to provide clean water. The pupils now were able to wash their hands.

  • 2019 an electric fence was built around the school grounds to protect the pupils from wild animals

  • 2020 two additional classrooms and housing for teachers were built. BeyondWater provided additional guttering and water tanks to collect rainwater. We hired a permaculture consultant and started on our Syntropic Agroforest garden to provide food for the children and the community.

  • 2021  75 desks and chairs were supplied to the school and the new building was inaugurated. The first living quarters for 3 teachers were opened in September. In addition we bought a posho mill to grind the maize to ugali flour. This will be used not only by us, but we also offer the services for a fee to nearby farmers. Thus providing additional income for the school. In September we were mandated by the authorities to build a proper kitchen, otherwise we would have to stop providing porridge and hot lunch for the kids. We managed to complete the new kitchen in time before the start of schoolyear 2022.

  • 2022  we added 2 more water tanks, had to reinforce the fence, built a new block of latrines including guttering and a smaller tank for hand-washing, rebuilt the garden that had been wrecked by the drought end of 2021 in 2 big workshops

    We filled up on school books and supplies, and also brought some balls for play

    Mid-year we could fix guttering at the roof of the kitchen and add another 10000 liter tank courtesy of a donation from our friends from Educate Enkerende.

    Primary schools now have to engage in raising small animals, so the kids can learn how to breed them, so we built a chicken coop and bought 6 chickens (end of 2022 we alread had 15)

    We also supplied a computer, printer, internet connection and desk, so the test material that is being prepared centrally by the school authorities and distributed through a website can be downloaded and printed.

 

What’s next ?

  • Reregistration of the school in 2023 – the regulations changed and this has to be done every 5 years now. There has been a report of things we need to provide and change in order to pass – estimated cost so far 2000 Euro

  • final completion of the first teacher house in 2023  – cost for windows, doors, plastering, painting  1000 Euro

  • Housing for additional 5 teachers – estimated cost 20000 Euro

  • 3 more class rooms

  • an irrigation system for the garden

  • A library

  • solar electricity and a computer class

 

Our running cost:

  • Teacher salaries, security guard, garden manager – total 9500 Euro per year

  • teacher training cost – around 400 Euro per year

  • School supplies

  • Textbooks

 

The impact of the global pandemic:

COVID-19 has hit the Masaai hard. With tourism coming to a halt many have lost their jobs. Markets shut down and they no longer were able to trade their cattle or buy food.

 

As a result two new initiatives were born:

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