On a recent trip to Kenya I visited Undugu Offices in Nairobi. Undugu were Shared Interest’s first African borrower and we have worked together for 11 years now. As with many African fair trade organisations they run several social programmes alongside their fair trade business.

In my opinion one of the most important is their education programme within the slums district managed by Francis Kaara who was our host for the visit to one of their schools. What follows are my thoughts of what proved to be an extremely emotive visit.

The Punwani school is a very basic corrugated iron structure, as are many of the surrounding homes, deep into the Majengo slum area. It houses 200 students at any one time aged from 12 to 16 years and they have 6 teachers.

Undugu has 3 other projects including the Mathare School in Mathare district, Ngomongo School in Korogocho district and Kibera School. Kibera is the largest slum in Nairobi with around one million people living there.

We meet the headteacher, Elias Ngari, who is still only 34 years old but has worked at the school for 10 years. However, this is his first term as head of the school; it must be emotionally challenging to work here but also very rewarding.

The new school year has just started so although the class for 12 year olds is only half full; by the summer term Elias tells us the class will be at capacity as the children grow used to the routine of attending every day. Many of them go to school willingly as they see it as their only escape from poverty and often their parents are not even aware that they are attending. A very important factor is that the pupils do get lunch each day which is possibly the only meal they will have. The school also tries to help with medication when the children fall ill.

As we enter the classroom with old wooden benches and desks, the children stand and say good afternoon and welcome us with smiling faces. Their clothes are oversized and torn and several have no shoes. We are invited to introduce ourselves and get a warm round of applause. There are no visible signs of paper or pencils on the desks – they learn from the teacher who uses a chalk blackboard.

We are told two of the boys have no family and sleep rough in the field next to the school in the evening. That must be quite intimidating for two small children as it is pitch black thanks to the lack of street lights.

The library, as they call it, is a tiny room with more empty shelves than full ones. There are few second hand text books provided by local government run schools and almost no story books. The cost of paying the teachers is the most important factor and there is no money available to stock the library.

The other challenge is that they have only limited daylight when they can actually read them outside of school hours.

When the pupils graduate at 16 they are given a certificate listing the subjects they have studied and they can then move on to a two year training programme where Undugu offer a choice of 40 different trades – from hairdressing to carpentry to computer skills. Hopefully when they reach 18 they can find work or start up a business of their own.

We take state ‘paid-for’ education for granted in the UK but in the developing world the cost of education is high and beyond the means of many families.

It’s hard not to feel emotional as you drive away but we feel inspired to do something for these schools and how simple but to ask for some unwanted second hand books.

The books in the library are so greatly valued within the school, and the fact that they are always returned in the same condition in which they were borrowed, not only demonstrates the importance the children place on education, but also shows how they, like the fair trade producers we meet during our trip, want to share any tools and skills they acquire along the way.

Back in Newcastle our charitable arm, Shared Interest Foundation, is going to support the delivery of any books we can collect. The children’s reading ages are 10-16 years so if you have any books or stationary you no longer need please pass them on to us so we can stock the shelves of their small libraries and bring some joy to these children who really appreciate the chance to escape a life of poverty through education.

Patricia, Shared Interest

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