Since our last update, we have been doing a lot of work at Faraja Children’s Home and the Longonot Education Center. We have been working on many home improvements at Faraja to make the home more child-friendly, as well as restructuring the administration to make management of the home easier. Our hope is that donors will see how efficiently Faraja can spend money, and how necessary additional funding is to the home and the lives of the children.
In addition to painting the interior and exterior of the home, we have been working to improve the general landscape and appearance of the home. Instead of laundry hung randomly throughout the yard, we built an area specifically for clothes to be washed and hung to dry. We have painted the study room with child-friendly colors, numbers, shapes, and cartoons, all conducive to learning. Soon we will construct new bookshelves, to replace the existing two that are falling apart. The old library and storage room has been transformed into an office, where there is a computer, meeting table, and a place for all of the accounts, records and paperwork to be stored in an organized manner.
Unfortunately, a few months ago all of the chickens died from an unknown disease. Despite the loss, we have taken the opportunity to replace the chicken coop with a dining area for the children. Currently the children eat outside on the ground, as there is not enough table space for them eat at. With the new dining area, they will have a table long enough for all of the children to sit at and enjoy their meals together in a covered weather resistant environment. We are planning to start this project within the next two weeks.
One of the previous volunteers at Faraja, Portia Duke, who is in Kenya with Ben now, has joined our LEI team! She will be actively fundraising for Faraja when she returns home in October, and has currently been working on creating comprehensive profiles of all of the children. She is working with us to create a sponsorship program that we hope to start in the very near future.
The Longonot Education Center is completely finished! The children are now learning in a very safe and healthy environment. They continue to receive lunch every day, and have plenty of school supplies. Along with the help of the current teachers we are looking for two new teachers with up-to-date teaching styles and fresh ideas to implement in the school. Next week, Simon and Ben, along with Teacher Mary and Teacher Jane, will interview a few candidates for the position.
We will make it a point to update our blog on a much more frequent basis, as we want all of our donors and supporters to know exactly what is going on! Pictures coming soon!
In addition to painting the interior and exterior of the home, we have been working to improve the general landscape and appearance of the home. Instead of laundry hung randomly throughout the yard, we built an area specifically for clothes to be washed and hung to dry. We have painted the study room with child-friendly colors, numbers, shapes, and cartoons, all conducive to learning. Soon we will construct new bookshelves, to replace the existing two that are falling apart. The old library and storage room has been transformed into an office, where there is a computer, meeting table, and a place for all of the accounts, records and paperwork to be stored in an organized manner.
Unfortunately, a few months ago all of the chickens died from an unknown disease. Despite the loss, we have taken the opportunity to replace the chicken coop with a dining area for the children. Currently the children eat outside on the ground, as there is not enough table space for them eat at. With the new dining area, they will have a table long enough for all of the children to sit at and enjoy their meals together in a covered weather resistant environment. We are planning to start this project within the next two weeks.
One of the previous volunteers at Faraja, Portia Duke, who is in Kenya with Ben now, has joined our LEI team! She will be actively fundraising for Faraja when she returns home in October, and has currently been working on creating comprehensive profiles of all of the children. She is working with us to create a sponsorship program that we hope to start in the very near future.
The Longonot Education Center is completely finished! The children are now learning in a very safe and healthy environment. They continue to receive lunch every day, and have plenty of school supplies. Along with the help of the current teachers we are looking for two new teachers with up-to-date teaching styles and fresh ideas to implement in the school. Next week, Simon and Ben, along with Teacher Mary and Teacher Jane, will interview a few candidates for the position.
We will make it a point to update our blog on a much more frequent basis, as we want all of our donors and supporters to know exactly what is going on! Pictures coming soon!
