A working day at Ruuju primary school

All in a day’s work at the Ruuju Primary School by Teresa Mellish

Yesterday Heather, Ken and I worked at the Ruuju Primary School. This was our last day at this school of 455 students located in Marega.

Heather worked with Irene Muga, our facilitator, to hold a focus group with 10 women who are parents of some of the children at the school. She wanted to evaluate the project so far and find out what challenges there were. She found out that the parents are very happy with the project. Although we have provided the capital for the vegetable garden, the cookhouse and the water tanks, the parents provide the maize and beans for the “githeri” for daily lunch for the children as well as the sorghum and finger millet for the porridge for the primary aged children. These parents own very small shambas (1/4 acre) so they have to rent land sometimes as far away as 10 km. Since the children are being fed at school , they now can go and work at the rented shamba for the full day instead of having to stay home to prepare a mid-day meal for their children. Or perhaps there was no mid-day meal for some children. We were told that the students had to carry water to school each day; now the parents are very happy there is clean water at school.

Ken replaced all of the water taps at the water tanks. All of the taps were leaking and wasting precious water in addition to creating a muddy area around each tap. Shaad and Clement, our driver, assisted with this wet job- they were all soaked at the end of it! He also met with Damaris, the horticulturist,

Teresa handed out the books provided by a Christmas donor. The $100 donation at Christmas time paid for 40 English language story books for the children. The children were also very excited to get 5 volley balls from Heather.

When we drove away we reviewed the changes at this school. Since children are being fed at noon each day, the mean score for the national exams taken by the standard 8 students went up by 18 points last year. There is a vegetable garden demonstrating how to produce new-to-the-area vegetables - Damaris talked to two farmers in the morning explaining which pesticides to use to produce blight-free tomatoes. There is a cook house with energy efficient stoves built with funds provided by Jack Kelly where meals are cooked each day. There is clean water for the students use each day. But most important of all there is a project management committee with whom we have a working relationship- something we did not have a year ago (Colleen will be so pleased!). And there is a plan for next year.