Supporting Education

Since Margaret's first visit to Kenya in 2009, we have supported further school projects, and assisted many young people through senior education.  

Remote but Inspiring

Margaret first visited Kamatumo Primary School, a remote school in the far east of Embu in 2018.  The area is dry and very hot.  There are no proper roads leading there, just a track littered with rocks and huge boulders, crossing deep ravines. The inhabitants are mostly goat-herders.   The car journey is slow, taking around 3 hours and along the journey you see women and children taking their goats to the nearest water. up to several miles away 

The school is surrounded by barren mountains and seems a forgotten place.  The only investment comes from "an occasional charity, but that is rare.  The solar panels, donated many years ago, are way out of date and no longer works. 

May was her fourth visit to Kamatumo, and despite obvious deprivation, the teachers always look very smart, and the children wear their uniform (pink shirts, grey skirts and trousers) proudly. How do they get to school each day – it can only be by walking from somewhere in the mountains, as there is little sign of life on the journey, and there are no vehicles at the school except for our 4 x 4.

"The children are very shy as they never see a white person, but are always curious about us and listen to us attentively" said Margaret.  "It’s so incredibly hot that we have to stand in the shade to listen to their songs of welcome.  This was the hottest I have ever known."

New Classrooms

"Two years ago my Church, Christ Church Billericay, sent £500 to renovate two classrooms, and the community worked together to collect materials to renovate the classrooms with new floors, plastered walls, new window frames and doors, and paint the walls inside and out.  What an amazing difference!  

In May we saw that the remaining two classrooms needing renovation were even worse, yet were still being used, desks and benches are incredibly old and a makeshift cupboard holds the children’s lunch, because goats wander in and out of the classrooms and eat it if it’s left out.  We are raising funds to renovate these classrooms.  We took pens, pencils, socks and underwear for the children.  You would have thought we had given them gold – the headteacher and staff were so excited and grateful.  

We went to a Rotary Club of Embu meeting, my fifth visit, and I was struck how many young people there were, many of them Rotaract studying at the University of Embu.  It was great to see how much Rotary Embu are involved in, including the Countrywide Blood Drive and fund-raising projects supporting schools.

Fulfilling Dreams

Billericay Rotary is presently sponsoring 3 young people through education, but at least 45 have been sponsored in recent years, life-changing for a bright child whose parents can’t afford fees for senior school or university.  We covered wide distances, travelling around schools meeting and encouraging our sponsored pupils, giving each of  them gifts of stationery, underwear and socks. All the young people thanked us for the opportunity they have been given.  We now have six who have completed university thanks to sponsors in Billericay.

Selection of a sponsored child is carefully undertaken by the Ciamanda Education Committee (comprising Headteachers, Deputy Heads, local Civic and Church leaders).  We always meet the Committee on our visits, going through the accounts, and together we follow up on each child.  Two sponsored young people, Immaculate and Stella, spoke fluently about the difference sponsorship was making to their lives, enabling them to hope that their dreams of a better future would be fulfilled.   It was very humbling.

We hope to visit Embu again in Spring 2026 when we’ll catch up once again on all the projects and progress of the sponsored children.  

By Rtn Rev Margaret Fowler