A blog by head teacher Peninah. Bringing joy, improved education, safe water and cooking for a community, See Solar, Cook Solar brings positive changes to Kinyaminagha School.

“The See Solar, Cook Solar project at our school has bought so many benefits to both the school and the community. Following completion our primary seven children performed really well in the district mock. In fact we are very happy to see that everyone is improving and almost all of the children are competing at the same rate due to access to free light, as they revise and study.

We hope we shall get some learners in division one in the primary leaving examination, which we are going to start to do on 2nd and 3rd of November 2016. Some of the pupils can now write using the computers. Some community members are no longer having to spend money on charging their phones, instead they come in the school to do this. Some parents and seniors from other secondary schools come to our school to do their assignments and other individual work so they are able to use the computers. Most teachers can now also write using computer.

Female teachers now prepare their family food at the school, and some nearby mothers also come to prepare their food and to use our solar ovens. The school no longer cries out for water – and everything at school is kept clean, including the classrooms and utensils.

The community around us is also very appreciative as they no longer have to travel to the rivers very far away to collect water; they now simply come to the school for water, for cooking, for drinking and for washing their utensils and clothes. Everyone is now drinking safe water (filtered water). The school is getting less cases of malaria.

The school now employs a security person and all the school equipment is safe-guarded. We also employ a matron to take care of the girls at school. School enrolments have increased; parents from neighbouring schools are beginning to send their children from nearby schools to our school, due to the school benefits available now. The school mother church has also benefited from the project since the school is almost attached to it. We have requested for the Bishop to come and bless our facilities and the whole school as we continue to excel. He has agreed, and that a special service will take place on 13 November and everyone is so very happy about this. In our history it is believed that since the mother church and school began they have never hosted the Bishop, so everyone is happy and praying for that day.

I too have benefitted a lot. I have learnt how to use the computer and since we got the computers, I have been working on my school studies assignments from the school computers, and it was possible for me to be handing in my assignments on time! and I am happy that I have now completed and passed my studies very well. I was among the hard-working students who graduated at the end of September 2016, and finished all the university activities. I hope I am going to settle now and concentrate on school activities and on my home only.

I hope in future that every learner from the lower classes will join the boarding system. We hope to employ a patron to care for the boys. We also hope that the school will have enough flower gardens and the whole school compound will be green since we now have enough water.

We also hope to construct hostels for the pupils and teachers’ quarters (houses), because at the moment the matron shares the classroom with the girls during the night and the security man also helps the matron in caring for the boys during the night. The school and communities healthy conditions will continue to improve due to safe water. We hope the school academic results will also continue to improve, right from the lower classes through to class seven. We intend to help other schools around us because we hope to buy a printer and to hold several educational seminars’ (meetings), for parents, covering how they can facilitate the current project to benefit the quality of the school and education in the future. We hope to help both female and male learners (equity education), and for the community to have well educated people who have jobs in the future. The cooking (food preparing conditions) systems in the community will also improve because some community members and teachers requested glosbuy (a trainer), to look for another day to come back to train them, so that they can get more knowledge about cooking”.

Yours and thank you

Peninah