How these Grade 8 graduates are inspiring hope in Kenya
These are some of the ten girls in the Grade 8 graduating class at Kamuketha Primary School
By Ken Mellish
We recently had the opportunity to visit the Kamuketha Primary school in Meru county, Kenya.
The school has been a partner with Farmers Helping Farmers for many years and is located in an area which has been hard hit by the recent drought. The rains have come back, and things are green, and the crops are growing, but there is yet no harvest of staple crops. Farmers Helping Farmers supports a feeding program at this school. When we were there, the school was closed for Christmas break but the morning porridge was still being served to fifty students who did not have food at home. Porridge, locally called “uji” is a liquid mix of sorghum, millet and maize flour with milk and water added. We joined them for a cup.
In addition to the younger children, there were eight girls who had recently graduated from grade eight at the school. This was a very moving moment for us. The class had twenty students, ten girls and ten
boys. All had passed the national grade eight exam. This is a great achievement from a school when we
first visited them years ago was struggling to keep children in class and academic performance was
weak. These girls were tall, healthy looking and full of plans for high school and professional careers in
the future.
We thought of the many things that FHF had contributed to their success. The Village Feast in Souris had
provided money to build the cook house to cook two meals a day. Farmers Helping Farmers had put a
garden in place to provide fresh vegetables every day. FHF provided milk funded by the Holiday
Campaign to improve the nutrition of the porridge every day. The added calcium, vitamins and protein
from milk made a great contribution to the growth of these girls.
A huge contribution was made by FHF member Nancy Russell who built three new class rooms in memory of her son Callum. This gave them a pleasant well-lit place to study. Many of their mothers are members of FHF partner women’s groups. At home, they would have had water from a FHF tank, meals cooked on a FHF stove and a solar-powered light to study by. Global Affairs Canada had contributed to this success through several cost-shared projects.
The staff at the school were present and their hard work and FHF staff had contributed to this
successful graduating class. Seeing these girls we thought of our granddaughters who enjoy the support families can provide here in Canada. Through Farmers Helping Farmers, this support was shared and we took great pleasure in seeing this group of girls ready to make a contribution to the world.