TEACHING-EMPOWERING-MENTORING-BUILDING OPPORTUNITY Mission: to partner with individuals and communities in Western Kenya to support entrepreneurial activities, education and health through training programmes, scholarships, water and sanitation projects

Saturday, February 18, 2017

Virtues puppet shows

Our first full day of the Virtues Project active in Africa. Val Hilliker gave two wonderful puppet shows, one at Daisy Special school and one at Mwiyenga Primary. The children at Mwiyenga sang Virtues songs and both groups of children were entranced,., especially when the Head Teacher became a puppet




.

Sunday, February 12, 2017

Traffic jam


Mungulu climbing frame

Went back to Mungulu Sunday afternoon to open the climbing frame for the children. There were few adults around but a good few children lined up at the well with their water containers. But when Nixon unfastened the ropes there was little doubt that the kids knew exactly what to do while waiting for their jerrycans to be filled.


when we arrived the kids were waiting patiently for water

Nixon undid the ropes

the first onw tried the swing

while the jerrycans waited on their own


Friday, February 10, 2017

ready for our visitors

We're completely ready for the Virtues Global Mentorship. We met with the manager of Kakamega Sports Club and set up menus, snacks and a few 'housekeeping' things for the people staying there. Your name tags are ready and Virtues Connection Kakamega meets tomorrow for any things still to put in place. All we need is for you to arrive safely. (BTW it was 39 C outside yesterday).
That's the good news. We are struggling with details for the Integrity conference since university lecturers are on strike (since the beginning of Feb) and have just rejected a government offer to entice them back to work. So public universities are virtually shut down. We will know on Wed if our university will close completely which will stop us from doing the student seminar of 21 st. We are hoping for a back-up plan where we can offer the session to students of Kenya medical training college. We will know on Monday if they are interested. Plan C is to approach one of the private universities whose director did Virtues training a couple of years ago! never a dull moment.
As far as we know the closure of the University would not interfere with the two sessions on 28 and Mar 1, although we are planning a second venue, just in case.

Wednesday, February 1, 2017

Mungulu well

This was a shallow well in the vicinity of a stream. The small, muddy pool where the village found water dried up in the drought of the last few weeks, so women were walking over an hour to find water. Even though we received some unexpected rain during the last week, the pool was still very polluted. Since the well was ready we went today to hand over to the community

The climbing frame was not ready for the children, so we'll go back in ten days for that


Excited ladies trying out the well

Such joy at the sight of clean water

the first group departs with their 20--litre pails

and others wait their turn