In the last decade, we have been incredibly proud of all we’ve been able to achieve — providing 457,000 free school meals to children in need, offering 210 students the chance to progress to secondary education, funding the construction of 21 classrooms and other educational facilities in Nakuru, and providing lifesaving support to 368 families as coronavirus hit Kenya. This all goes above and beyond what we ever hoped to achieve — and we are so grateful for the overwhelming support that has enabled this.
Now, as we look towards the next ten years, we are dreaming big. We’ve purchased two acres of land within a community with high levels of poverty, with the goal of significantly scaling the number of children we’re able to support. Our dream is to build this land into a centre that serves the community: delivering free school meals to nursery and primary schools, building emergency housing and a social worker’s office to support vulnerable teenagers, and growing our own food to sustain ourselves.
It will become the hub from which we can support hundreds of low-income and vulnerable children to succeed within the government education system.
WE WILL CREATE A COMMUNITY centre PROVIDING HOLISTIC SUPPORT TO VULNERABLE CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE FROM THE LOCAL COMMUNITY.
Florence and Cleopas exploring our new plot of land in January 2020.
Reviewing the map of the land upon viewing the plot, January 2020.
a new model for delivering free school meals
We’re taking inspiration from the incredible Wawira Njiru and her organisation Food4Education — who have delivered more than 6 million free school meals from centralised kitchens in Nairobi and Mombasa.
We will identify schools to receive free school meals through a fair and transparent application process that takes into account both the need of the pupils, and the performance of the school — helping to drive up local attainment results by supporting headteachers to improve education outcomes. The need is great: we’ve already received an official request for support from Olbonata Primary School, whose headteacher wrote to us requesting free school meals for her pupils — and we’ve not even built a kitchen yet!
“Most learners with chronic absence say that they go to do manual work in order to get money for food. Fainting cases have been observed in our school. Some learners come to school hungry and are unable to concentrate in class. These issues — and many others — have forced us to seek assistance.”
By 2025, we want to be providing 3,000 FREE SCHOOL MEALS a week FROM OUR COMMUNITY KITCHEN, GROWING OUR OWN PRODUCE TO SUSTAIN IT.
why emergency housing?
We support low-income and vulnerable teenagers to progress to secondary education — by paying their school fees, buying uniforms, books and equipment, and by providing counselling and support through our incredible social workers. Over the years, we’ve witnessed many cases of young people left without a safe place to live, perhaps because of an illness or death in the family, an unstable home environment, or other danger factors in their local area. On several occasions, our social workers have voluntarily welcomed homeless young people into their houses for the Christmas holidays, because they had nowhere else to go. We want to provide that safe refuge in a more sustainable way: creating simple sheltered housing where young people can live independent lives but under the care and support of our team, able to live and study with fewer worries.
Florence and Serah visiting plots of land as we researched the best location to buy.
The main road bordering our new plot of land.
WHERE and WHEN WILL IT START?
Our two acres of land are around 20km north of Nakuru, near Wanyororo in Bahati constituency. It’s in a beautiful location just down the road from the Menengai Crater! There are at least seven government primary schools in the local area, and it’s close to a good road for delivering free school meals in the vicinity. We’re in the final stages of construction of our kitchen and hope to begin providing meals to local schools in late 2024 or early 2025. We’ve already grown and harvested two crops of maize — supplying our free school meals programme at Nyathuna Primary School!
Our beautiful new building in May 2024. It includes a kitchen to provide free school meals, a community hall, and an office for our social worker to meet with sponsored students and their families.
Our maize crops growing in May 2024. They provide enough food to cook the Kenyan staple ‘ugali’ for 200 children every week at Nyathuna Primary School.
Florence and Joseph reviewing progress on the kitchen build with our construction manager in May 2024.
OUR SUPPORTERS
This dream has only been possible because of the generosity of several major donors:
YOU Magazine and Clarins — our co-founders Rebecca, Zoe and Annemarieke were honoured to be named the YOU/Clarins Women of the Year in 2015. The prize fund of £30,000 was awarded to invest in the long-term sustainability of our free school meals programme — and without it, the purchase of our land would be have been impossible!
Brunel Wealth — these independent, trusted financial planners from the UK have been a huge support to our dreams! In 2020, their employees planned to run the Bristol 10k to fundraise for our children — but when COVID-19 hit, they made a donation of £10,000 towards construction of our community kitchen instead!
Sébastien Ogier — we were blown away to receive €10,000 from the world champion French rally driver following his visit to Kenya in 2021. This incredibly generous donation made national news, and part of it will be invested in the construction of vital facilities and set-up of our agricultural projects as part of the new community hub.
HOW CAN I HELP?
We want to launch with a bang and help as many local children as possible. Any donation would be hugely appreciated — 100% of your money will go direct to our projects, and we’ll keep you updated on our progress. Your contribution will help us to invest in our future and grow far bigger and faster than we ever dreamed possible: thank you so much.