Hello everyone!
We hope you had a great holiday season and are enjoying being back in
the swing of things like we are!
Once again, my new years resolution is to write more blog updates, post
more photos, and generally stay in touch with our supporters more often. So, I’m going to try.
We have a great intern here now, Shanie Holman, who is
posting some of her wonderful pictures that we will be sharing on
Facebook. We also recently hosted
my good friend and EAC board member Libby Gluck here, doing lessons on peace
and helping the children to create some great peace-inspired art work to bring
home to our donors. The elections
are coming up on March 4th in Kenya, and everyone is anxious to see
how it goes and hoping for a peaceful outcome. The last elections were at the end of 2007 – violence ensued
after allegations of manipulation of results. An estimated 800 people died and 600,000 were
displaced. Luckily, the Coast of
Kenya was a much safer place than the rest of the country. We are confident that this year will be
better, but just in case are prepared to hide out in our safe haven of
Kilifi/Takaungu and hope for the best.
It is an important time to teach the students about
elections, the right to vote, peace, and the future of their country and
teachers are taking every opportunity to do so. So, the students have definitely hit the ground running this
year. The Class 1 students are
settling in well in their first year at primary school, and the new KG1 nursery
students (all 3 years old) have slowly stopped crying in the mornings when
their parents leave.
We are also happy to have our new head teacher, Jumaa Masha
Lewis with us. He started work on
February 1st and is off to a wonderful start working on revitalizing
the school clubs and the arts classes.
I’ll spotlight him in my next blog post.
The health work has also resumed for 2013 and motivation is
high! We have 15 strong chickens
(ok, we have lost about 10 so far but the remaining ones are looking good and
should be for sale soon). Once we
make some money on these chickens, we are going to expand their house and also
add a place to bring our goats. In
2010, a parent donated a goat to the EAC.
This goat has been living with a staff member and has now had a baby. We would like to bring them to the EAC
compound and try to expand our goat population. At holiday time, a goat can bring in a lot of money! We are really hopeful that these
income-generating strategies can help support our health work.
While we wait for the chickens to grow, health work goes on
as usual. Health education has
resumed at the 6 local primary schools, and our nearby partner has added in a 7th
school! Health staff are also
working with 6 community groups, sharing health information and trying to
assist them with small business development. We continue to work with the two government clinics in our
area of operation, and are helping the Community Health Worker unit to
implement a door-to-door HIV testing grant they received from the government. A huge thanks is due to our Peace Corps
volunteer Jill Daniels, who has contributed so much in her first 6 months with
us.
As you can see, we are excited to be moving forward, as
always. I am particularly hopeful
about the year ahead, as I feel we have really planned well to make the big moves
towards further sustainability. We
will keep you posted as this happens.
Wishing all of you a wonderful and progress-filled year as well!
