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A Safe and Dry Home.

5/1/2016

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When we started our initiative in 2011 we discussed in great length about how to best provide and improve education opportunities for children in Kenya. We chose, as our mission statement states, to take a holistic approach to education, focusing not only on the curriculum and school supplies, but on the health, nutrition, and safe living-environments for both the teachers and their students. 
Over the past few months our team has spent a lot of time getting to know one of the teachers, Alice, while working at the Living Positive Kenya Daycare Center. Alice is a single mother raising four children, her youngest is six months old and her oldest is 15 years. The family of five live in a small house made of wood and iron sheets in the slum of Mathare. Knowing how hard Alice works to provide for her family with the very little she has, we decided to relieve some of her burden by paying for the school fees of her two oldest children, Paul and Mary (Paul is still in need of a sponsor!).
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Alice and her family.
On a recent home visit we came to realize that their home was, to say the very least, not very sturdy nor safe, and the roof did very little to keep the house dry. Homework and studying is tough enough for any student, but to do so while trying to avoid the rain in your own home must be, well, awful.

​So, we decided to do something about it!


We organized a few friends and volunteers to do a not-so-extreme-home-makeover, but one that would at least keep their house sturdy and free of rain. By reinforcing the frame of their home and purchasing a few new pieces of iron sheets, we were able to successfully rain-proof their house, and just in time for the rainy season. Not only that, but one of the volunteers who helped with the construction donated a set of bunk beds for the kids - check out the gallery below!
All in all it took just one day, a few swollen thumbs from missed hammer swings, and about $100 to drastically improve the lives of a very deserving family. We hope you can see that when you donate to our organization, your donation truly makes a difference in the lives of the children, teachers, and families we support. If you would like to help Alice's family further, you can do so by contacting us at longonoteducationinitiative@gmail.com or by donating here, just leave a note that says 'Alice'!
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Arts and Crafts for the LPK Daycare Center!

11/11/2015

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Our teammate, Sedona Keenan, recently described her experiences starting an art class for the children at the Living Positive Kenya Daycare Center. Here's what she had to say:
"The LPK Daycare Center is such a happy, energetic and loving place. You would never guess that it's located in the heart of Ngong's slum. Our team loves visiting the center any and every chance we get, the kids never fail to put us in a great mood!

I noticed that the school was missing something though, a place for the students to learn and practice arts and crafts. I knew that these kids were full of creativity, all of their handmade toys and inventions scattered all over the school made that abundantly clear, from the cars made of juice boxes with bottle caps for wheels, to the tiny planes made from lollipop sticks and old soda bottles.
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I grew up surrounded by art. I was always taking extra classes throughout the summer and visiting different galleries and studios with my mom. I can’t begin to imagine growing up without art.

​Last year we finished constructing a new classroom for the center, which left one of the older classrooms available for something new. The room wasn’t in great shape, the ceiling was falling down and the walls were covered in mud and torn posters, but I knew that I could turn the space into an art room, I just needed a hammer, some nails, and a few buckets of paint!
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Before
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It took a week and a lot of work, but I managed to turn the old classroom into a bright and colorful art room – the kids were absolutely thrilled! ​
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It's been so fun (and challenging) coming up with inexpensive project ideas with the things we can find locally. We recently traced their hands and colored them in, turning them into flowers. The kids love seeing their work displayed around classroom and get really excited when they get to take their work home with them to show their families.

I’ve got a ton of ideas for future projects, but I would also love to hear some ideas from you! If you have an idea for an inexpensive and fun art project for kids between the ages of 3-5 please let me know at sedona@longonoteducation.org.
If you would like to donate towards art supplies and materials for the class, the kids and I would really appreciate it! There are so many projects I would like to do with them, but it's hard when you have so many kids and very limited resources. You can donate here. Thanks so much and stay tuned for more updates and pictures of the art class!"
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An Overdue 2015 Update!

2/17/2015

67 Comments

 
The LEI Team wrapped up 2014 with success and happiness in all of our projects . The former street children we had sent to school remained in class, even exceeding our expectations in their performance despite being out of school for so long. The classroom we helped fund for the Living Positive Kenya Daycare Center was finished and turned out so much better than we ever could have imagined. The school in Longonot continued to thrive with a graduating class of nearly 30 children now attending public school.

It's only February, yet already our projects have all experienced significant improvements this year! 

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Thanks to so many of our generous supporters the daily lunch program has resumed at the Longonot Education Center, a much needed and long awaited return. The children now receive a hefty and hearty meal each day after their morning classes. Lunch will certainly make recess and their afternoon lessons a lot more fun.

We also recently celebrated our 4th birthday with all of the children and teachers at the school - what better way to celebrate than with the school that first sparked our initiative!
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The new classroom at the LPK Daycare Center is loved by all of the students and their teachers. The new class allows for a much larger learning and teaching space, and the three new toilets have improved the sanitation conditions tremendously.

We want to thank everyone who donated towards this project last year, and we are so happy to announce to everyone its completion and success.

We continue to work with LPK in an effort to identify children in especially vulnerable situations that may require a bit of extra help in both the home and school.
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These days you won’t find many street boys wandering the streets of Ngong, as most have them have graduated from our program at the Ahadi Education Center and are now back in school (and performing better than we ever could have hoped).

We are still hard at work helping the few boys that remain in the streets, but we are determined they have what it takes to join the boys currently in school. 
Thank you so much to everyone who continues to follow and support our effort to bring education to as many children here in Kenya as possible. We promise some new and exciting updates soon!
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Playgrounds, Classrooms, and Former Street Boys Back to School!

5/26/2014

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The last month here in Kenya has been filled with many reasons to celebrate. Three weeks ago the LEI team took a trip to the Longonot Education Center to build a playground for the pre-primary school we constructed two years ago. The playground was a simple project idea that cost only $170! We started building early Wednesday morning and spent the full day constructing the swing set, monkey bars, balance beams, and a seesaw.  Most of the children living in the rural town of Longonot had never seen any kind of playground equipment and usually spent most of their recess playing with old tires and rocks. When we had our impromptu “grand opening” of the playground the children were in awe (check out the video!). We were pretty happy and shocked to see that the most popular feature was the balance beam, which only cost $20! It reaffirmed our belief that even the smallest donation can make a huge impact in the lives of these kids. Still, we were very surprised by how much joy could be brought to these children with just a few hours of work and less than $200. Along with the playground we also brought the children composition books, chalk, and writing utensils to last them the entire second term. 
 
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A boy having fun on the monkey bars!
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Peter, one of the former street boys back in school!
At the Ahadi Education Center we recently had a small graduation ceremony for the street boys who have attended our class on a regular basis and shown true interest in changing their lives. We started class with just over 20 boys, holding class Monday through Friday every week for eight months. Of the boys we started with, seven of them have shown an incredible transformation; they have stopped taking drugs, and committed themselves to returning to their formal education; they returned to school three weeks ago! Seeing the change these boys have made in their lives has been one of our proudest accomplishments this year. Now is the time where we will start the process over again, in hopes of helping rehabilitate even more of the street boys in the town of Ngong. 
Construction at the LPK Daycare Center has been coming along nicely; the foundation, walls, and roof have been finished. In the next few weeks the interior of the classroom will be finished! We are currently fundraising to provide 15 desks and chairs for the classroom, allowing 30 children to comfortably sit in class. After the classroom is completed, construction of the four new sanitary toilets will begin.

With 2014 just about halfway over we are very proud of the accomplishments we have made this year. Within the next six months we are hoping to find sponsors for each of the boys we have assisted in returning to school, while also helping the next group of boys at the Ahadi Education Center to return to school. We are also searching for a needy and deserving community for the next school or classroom we hope to build in 2015!

  
   

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Progress of the LPK Daycare Classroom!
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The LEI Team is back in Kenya - with lots of updates!

4/9/2014

1492 Comments

 
Is it March already? Where does the time go?! We are happy to say that the LEI team has returned to Kenya and has some new announcements regarding our projects!

After a short delay, construction of the new classroom at the Living Positive Kenya Daycare Center started in early March. The new classroom will provide adequate space for the 120+ children that attend the school, and the four new toilets that are also being built will improve the sanitation conditions. We are very happy and proud to have contributed to the funding of this project. Construction is expected to finish by the end of this month. We’ve kept consistent documentation of the progress in pictures and we’d love it if you followed along! 
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Construction Progress
The boys attending our class for street children at the Ahadi Education Center have made a truly remarkable change; it’s hard to believe that just six months ago they were wandering the slum searching for metal scraps to fund their addiction to glue. The boys are now sober, clean, attentive, and most importantly, interested in returning to school. We are preparing to send 11 boys to school in May! 
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The boys’ soccer program has been a very important part of their recovery over the last six months. Recently, thanks to a few very generous donors, the boys received team t-shirts and shorts – it’s great to see them playing together in the same uniform!

We are still working towards finding sponsors for all of the 40+ children at Faraja Children’s Home. We are most urgently searching for sponsors for the six children attending high school, as their school fees are no longer subsidized by the government. If you are interested in learning more about the sponsorship program please contact us at longonoteducationinitiative@gmail.com.

As we continue working within the slum community with the street boys and the LPK Daycare, we often come across families and children with very tragic and heartbreaking stories of poverty and their daily struggles to survive in Kenya. Sometime a particular child or story stands out to us and we feel the need to help in someway.    

Recently a mother came to us while in class with the street boys and asked if we would be willing to accept her seven year old son, Paul, into our class. Due to the death of Paul’s father and her poor health, Paul’s mother was unable to continue paying for his school fees. Her thought was that at least he would be in some kind of school while she struggled to find the money for his fees for the next school term. We felt that the class for the street boys was not the most adequate place for Paul, so we asked his mother how much money she needed for his school fees; we were shocked to hear it was only $15. 
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Paul
For the price of a few cups of coffee at home, we paid for Paul’s school fees and allowed him to return to class. Having worked in Kenya for the last three years it still amazes us to see just how much of a difference such a small amount of money can make in the life of a child. We hope you might consider donating something small, any amount, so that we can help other children like Paul return to school to reach the education and opportunities they deserve.
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2013; A Year In Review

12/28/2013

164 Comments

 
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With 2013 coming to an end we can’t help but feel a huge sense of accomplishment for our little organization. This year we have grown and achieved so much. 

The Longonot Education Center has continued to thrive since its construction (which sparked our initiative) in 2011. Over the summer the school was granted more than 60 pairs of canvas shoes by the Kenyan Red Cross (thanks to TOMS) to support many of the students who were walking to school barefoot. The need for items like shoes is vast in rural Kenya and we are grateful to work with a teacher who goes out of her way to help support her students by applying for necessary aid. One of our proudest moments this year was learning that the attendance at the school has increased by 56%, from 48 to 75 students within the last two years! The children are learning and growing bigger and smarter every day. If attendance continues to grow, who knows… we might have to build another classroom within the next couple years! 

This year we also added a new team member, Sedona Keenan, to help fundraise and manage our newest project, the Ahadi Education Center. The center serves as a sort of “halfway” point between street life in the slum and returning to public school for a group of 25 teenaged boys. We are so proud to say that three of the boys are already back in school and doing a great job. One of the boys ranked number 17 out of 67 students in his class! It’s hard to believe just four months ago he was struggling with drug addiction.

At the Living Positive Daycare center, in conjunction with efforts made by Living Positive Kenya, we were able to raise $7,000 for a new classroom to combat the current problem of overcrowding and poor sanitation. The designs for the classroom are currently being reviewed by the city council and should be approved shortly – construction will begin immediately after!

After working for with Faraja Children’s Home for a year and a half we were very excited to say that the home was finally granted official CCI (Charitable Children’s Institution) status by the Kenyan Government. This means that the home is now a recognized children’s home by the government and brings many new opportunities to the home, which were not possible prior to registration.

The LEI team can easily agree that our proudest moment this year was being able to announce our 100% Donation Guarantee. Since we started LEI it has always been important to us to be able to tell our donors that every dollar donated would go directly to the children we support; crossing that off our To-Do List was an incredible feeling for everyone involved. 
 
In 2011, when LEI began, our organization intended to help just 48 precious children. Two years later more than 250 children benefit from the projects we support, a number we never expected but are very proud of. Our team has high hopes for 2014; that we will continue to grow, and reach even more children in the coming months.  This year has been such a blessing for LEI and the children of our projects. We are so grateful for all the support we have been given throughout the year. None of this could be possible without contributions from so many selfless individuals worldwide. 

Thank You & Happy New Year! 
-The LEI Team


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November Update!

11/14/2013

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We recently traveled to the project that first sparked our initiative in Kenya, the Longonot Education Center. We were excited to hear than since the construction of the school in early 2012, attendance has increased from just 48 students to 75! We have since provided a salary for a third teacher who has been teaching the oldest group of students who are now preparing to enter a government public school. While visiting we dropped off a large box full of school supplies for all of the kids! The school is doing better than we ever imagined; the teachers and the entire community are still so grateful for their new building. They are even using the classroom as a public polling station and volunteer HIV testing and counseling center for the town.

Construction of the new classroom and four new toilets for the Living Positive Daycare Center is expected to begin by the end of this month. The construction is expected to take just under three months, so the children will have their new class by February 2014!

To send off our team member Portia with a proper farewell, we took the boys from Ahadi Education Center to dinner for roasted meat (nyama choma) at a local restaurant to appreciate their hard work over the last two and a half months.

As 2013 winds down we are still working hard to complete the Faraja Sponsorship Program by the beginning of the first term in January and will have more announcements on this project soon.  We hope you will continue to follow the progress of all of our projects by following us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram!

-The LEI Team

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October Update!

10/3/2013

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After working hand-in-hand with Living Positive Kenya over the last few months we have finally reached our fundraising goal needed to construct a new classroom, four toilets, and to bring piped water to the Daycare Center! Thank you to all of the generous people who donated. Construction is expected to begin within the next few weeks and we will continue to post frequent updates on the progress.
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Our LEI team has spent the better part of 2013 getting to know a group of boys living in the slum of Mathare, Ngong. Most of the boys have either run away from home or have been orphaned. Many of them have problems with drug addiction, namely glue, a drug that makes them sleep and feel less hungry during the day. We have been working with a man, a former street-child, Joseph Njoroge, to help these boys recover from their street life and return to their educations. We decided to help Joseph establish an education center and a daily feeding program. 

Ahadi Education Center (Ahadi means "promise" in Kiswahili) provides informal lessons on life skills, health education and basic studies. Following the lessons the boys receive a late lunch, one that keeps them satiated until they fall asleep. This daily meal deters them from using glue in the evening. Our intention is that the center will serve as a halfway step between the streets and a formal education. Ultimately, our goal is to prepare the boys to attend school and reintegrate themselves into their community as productive members of society. 

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We spent the first week of class constructing tables and a blackboard for the classroom. We used this opportunity to teach the boys about carpentry; the tools and skills needed to build something with their own hands. In the following weeks we have had volunteer teachers providing lessons in guitar, geography, critical thinking, and other subjects.

We will continue to post updates and photos on the Ahadi Education Center project page, we hope you will follow our progress and support our effort to help these boys!
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September Update!

9/3/2013

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The last few months have been very busy for all of us at LEI!

We are still fundraising for the new classroom of the Living Positive Kenya Daycare Center, and are hoping to begin construction in Mid-October. The last big fundraising effort will be a dinner sponsored by LPK, held on September 20th at the Bounty Hotel in Ngong, Kenya. 

The new classroom, four toilets and urinal will alleviate the current problems of overcrowding and poor sanitation. To learn more about LPK and the Daycare Center and our effort to help check out the project page!
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We recently added a new member to our team! Sedona Keenan is on her second trip to Kenya and has been heavily involved in our effort to help the street boys living in the slum of Mathare; she will be returning to California in September and will spend her time back in the States fundraising for this project.
 
As of July 2nd, Faraja Children’s Home was named a registered CCI by the District Children’s Office. As a registered CCI Faraja will now belong to a network of other children’s homes recognized by the Kenyan Government. The registration will also help the home when applying for federal grants, corporate sponsorship, and private funding. This is an accomplishment the home has been working towards for years and we are so happy to have helped them achieve this goal. 

Last week Living Positive Kenya donated 40 new mosquito nets to Faraja Children’s Home! The mosquito nets were made by the women enrolled in the WEEP (Women Economic Empowerment Program) class and the materials were donated by HEART (Health Education Africa Resources Team). We cannot thank LPK and HEART enough for helping us help all of the children at Faraja!
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Recently, Santa Cruz Skateboards donated a very large box of skateboards, t-shirts, stickers and other goods for the street boys of Mathare and for the local skaters of Kenya. Half of the donated skateboards will be used to take the street boys on field trips to Nairobi for skating lessons as a reward-based program and the other half will be donated as prizes at the grand opening of the first skatepark in Kenya. We would specifically like to thank the Santa Cruz Team Manager, Jordan Tabayoyon, and Bob Denike for their very generous donation. We will have an update on this program very soon!

We hope you will continue to follow the progress of all of our projects by following us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram!


-The LEI Team
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Longonot Update

6/15/2013

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Yesterday we visited the school in Longonot. We were headed out there to check up on the teachers and students alike, and we are happy to say things are better than we could have expected. 

Last week each child at Longonot was granted a pair of TOMS from the Kenyan Red Cross. Many of the children had worn down or outgrown their shoes and some were even walking to school barefoot, so as you can imagine we are very grateful for this donation!

In case you are unfamiliar with TOMS here is a brief explanation, TOMS is an American based company that sells simple canvas shoes, however for each pair sold they have promised to donate a similar pair to a child in need. “One for One” is the TOMS slogan, but as popular as the shoes are many people have been skeptical of the company’s follow through initiative. However, no one would doubt them again after seeing all the children at Longonot proudly sporting their new shoes. In whole TOMS donated over one million pairs to the Kenyan Red Cross and it was up to specific beneficiaries to request the donation. Thankfully, our very own Teacher Jane heard of this opportunity and spent the time to fill out the application for each child in our school and was granted her request! Now all the little ones at the Longonot Education Center have at least one solid pair of shoes and no one could be happier.

In addition to the TOMS Teacher Mary had some great news to tell us; recently the children participated in a musical competition hosted by the Education Board of Kenya in a town up the road from Longonot. Our youngsters were stunning! They took 2nd place in Best Western Style Song and Dance, and one of our little girls took 2nd in Best English Solo. We are so proud!

As you can see the school is doing very well overall. The children’s marks are higher than many of the nearby private schools, and we are blessed with some really great teachers! We were blown away by all the good news and cannot wait to make a return trip soon to see what more progress is possible.
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Our precious little soloist with her certificate.
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All smiles!
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Even Teach Jane got a pair of TOMS.
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