Key People: Rodgers Ade, Daniel and Magdalen Ogutu
We were once again not able to visit Mathare last year due to Covid-19 travel restrictions.
This last year has been very challenging for Mathare due to the impact of Covid-19. They lost a number of school teachers who resigned which greatly affected the learning in the schools. The parents of the students similarly lost jobs and were no longer able to pay the school fees. The MCO mixed secondary school had to close due to running costs.
Despite these challenges, the primary school registered good results in their national examinations and nearly 99% were able to enter high school. The leading student, a girl, was able to join a government national school. They had a total of 81 pupils who did the examination.
Two classes were renovated at the MCO4B primary school offering a more conducive learning environment for the children.
The general financial position of the organization dropped to its lowest as some partners withdrew due to a lack of funds. This greatly affected the smooth running of program activities, especially feeding, staff salaries and other recurrent costs like water and electricity bills.
Although things are tight financially, they are hoping enrolments will continue to increase so the payment of school fees can reduce their debt. They plan to re-open the secondary school in 2023.
Personal StoriesAngel Riper is a bright girl and has been performing well in school. She sat her final national Kenya Certificate of Primary Education exam and scored 382/500 marks to become the top student in the MCO group of primary schools.
She is a well-disciplined girl, hardworking and joined a competitive girl’s national high school. She is also talented in acting. She hopes to become a medical doctor in future.
Artive is a partial orphan having lost his father. His mother lives in the rural family home but he lives with an elder sister in Mathare slum. He goes to school at MCO4B. Life has been very tough for him with a huge school fee balance now running to about US$220 but his resilience towards education is what has remained key. At some point he went home and found the landlord had locked them out. He sought help from his head teacher who accommodated him. He is an average student and would have simply dropped out of school, but he has remained focused and is looking forward to doing fairly well in the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education.
• Inadequate funds to run the various activities and build new structures to replace the current dilapidated ones.
• Staff turnover, mainly the teachers, due to a delay in being paid because of a lack of funds.
• Huge unpaid fee balances by students in the primary schools which is interfering with the smooth operations of the school. Many parents lost their businesses and employment as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
• Fear of possible political chaos being an election year - the slums get volatile
• Lack of a properly defined plan in place to help in sustaining the organizations' activities
• The recently introduced education system requirements in Kenya is expensive for community schools like Mathare. The demand for books and other supplies is way too high for poor parents.
• Maintaining the school feeding program has been tough since the withdrawal of the World Food Program as ordered by the government. Food and many household goods keep increasing in price.
• The general cost of living has increased with the value of the Kenyan shilling depreciating against other foreign currencies.
1) Pray for the class 8 pupils who will be sitting their final Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) from 7th to 10th March. They have a total of 57 who will sit the exams.
2) Pray for more funds to help them meet many more obligations, e.g., repairs and maintenance etc
3) Pray for peace to prevail in Kenya as they face the upcoming general elections in August
4) Pray for more new students to join the MCO group of schools
5) Pray for the plans to re-open the secondary school to admit the first lot of students currently in grade five in 2023
Mathare continues to educate their children after what was a challenging year which shows resilience. Things continue to be difficult financially for them and Rodger has been encouraged to think about ways this can be managed more sustainably and to make some changes. We will continue to have these discussions with him.