Impact Stories |
Posted by: David Omondi Dear friends, We thank you deeply for supporting our teachers. First term have been successful so far mainly due to the two extra teachers we were able to hire in January 2018. With the funds we have received, we hae been able to keep our teachers in school ensuring that our girls are learning and get the support they deserve. Because of your support, we have retained $100% of our teachers ensuring timely implementation of the syllabus. Availability of teachers has also impacted positively on the girls. Akili girls do not miss school because they know that the teachers are always present. The teachers are engaging students in other after school programs including smart girl program which teaches self confidence and life skills to the girls, girl guides and sports program which focuses on reproductive health and leadership as well as sustainakility club which teaches the girls to be good stewards of the environment and grow food to sustain Akili School. With a teacher to student ration of 1: 15, our goal is to have 90% of our girls scoring above average in their tests. We are working with our new teachers by taking them on regular trainings so that they can learn ways of improving student perofrmance and caring for the girls. We also have different volunteers from University of Edinburgh UK, Chalmers University Sweden and USA who are working with our teachers on different areas including reprductive health, leadership and literacy. Thank you so much for giving to pay our teachers and give our girls an opportunity to access quality education. God bless you! Construction of 2 new classrooms Students from Edinburgh University
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Posted by: David Omondi Staff Meeting Dear Donors, We have been deeply blessed to partner with you to create jobs for women in our community who have trained as teachers but do not have jobs. Your donations of $10 or more have helped us to pay their stipends timely motivating them to keep doing their best to support the Akili Girls. We resumed school for first semester in January 2018. With your support, we were able to hire 2 new teachers for 4th grade and 2nd grade. The girls are now doing well being assisted by qualified teachers. We had our first monthly meeting with the Akili Staff and it is amazing to see all the women we have been able to create jobs for because of your support. Even though our government might not have had success in implementing the 2/3rd gender rule, we are happy to have over 10 women represented in our meetings. Last week our Co-founder David was in Rwanda with Amplify Org, a consortium of grasroots orgs working to empower adolescent girls in eastern Africa. it was wonderful to connect with other leaders out to give girls opportunities and connect to have a common voice to champion girls and womens issues. This partnership will provide opportunities for our teachers and staff to network in the region and continue to share resources and best practices to improve our work. We are still far off from reaching our fundraising goal of atleast $10,000, but we remain optimistic that with every $1 we receive, we inch closer and closer and continue creating more opportunities for women to be empowered economically in our community. Thank you for being part of this jouney. God bless you! Team Akili Akili Girls
Posted by: David Omondi Dear Donors, We have come to the successful end of the final semester of the year at Akili School. We thank you all so much for your incredible generosity that saw us provide clean water for all the 44 girls at the boarding school for the entire school year. For the entire year, no student at Akili School fell ill due to contaminated water as was the case in the preceding years. Your generous donations ensured that we installed massive water tanks and harvested over 50,000 litres of water for the girls. We also had enough water for our gardens and through sustainakility club, the girls grew different vegetables and sweet potatoes thereby providing 100% of the schools vegetable needs! The girls learnt a lot about small scale farming and sustaining their school. We saved upto $200 that we used to spend to purchase water every term. This was directed to meet other important costs of feeding the girls at the boarding school. As we prepare to welcome 15 more girls to the boarding school, we feel that the current water will suffice. We are now directing all our attention and energies into building a LITERACY GARDEN aimed at developing the knowledge, skills and talents of marginalized rural girls and children to promote literacy, food security, environmental stewardship and healthy lifestyle and nutrition through establishing a literate environment for girls and children in a farm setting in South West Kisumu Kenya. Riley Orton Foundation is committed to improving literacy and through this contributing to nation building and sustainable development. This project will provide a safe and inspiring space; an open library in a garden setting where girls and children can meet everyday after school to improve their literacy skills, learn how to write, share their stories with the world, and learn how to value their own and other people’s stories. They will also learn how to grow food using simple small scale solutions based on permaculture and other regenerative agriculture practices. They will have the opportunity to prepare different meals in the farm kitchen, reduce stress through yoga at the garden, develop their talents in music, drama, dance and public speaking, and learn numeracy skills through pretend play shops at the garden. More info about this work is available here: https://www.rileyortonfoundation.org/about3.html We invite you to continue partnering with us by giving here: https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/akiligardenandsports/ Thank you so much for your partnership and commitment to create access to free education to underprivileged girls. We couldn't have done it without you! Girls preparing potatoes they grew at the school Girls happy with their harvest Girls at school
Posted by: David Omondi Teachers and staff capacity building Dear Donors, We are grateful for your contribution towards paying wages for our staff. We hired 2 new teachers who have helped immensely in teaching our girls at the boarding school. With the support of volunteers and sunflower foundation org Australia,we also hired a computer instructor who taught the girls basic computer skills and etoys programming. We believe that hiring qualified teachers,we believe that we are on the right path to providing quality education toour girls. This semester,we held capacity building sessions with curriculum support officers from the ministry of education in a bid to improve their effectiveness in deleivering the approved govt curriculum. We are admitting 15 new students from Obunga Slum in January 2018. We are hiring one new teacher at $1200 to teach 3rd graders coming from obunga slum. Kindly partner with us again to raise funds to hire and pay our teachers and allow 60 girls to learn and lift themselves out of poverty. Thank you Akili School Teacher Akili School Obunga Campus Teacher training
Posted by: David Omondi Students using computers Dear Partners, Quality education is at the core of our programming. we endevor to do this through hiring of qualified teachers and build their capacity to improve the quality of instruction for our girls. With your support and about GBP 3000 and AUD $ 3000 from Hilden CHaritable Trust Uk and Sunflower Foundation Ngo Australia, we have managed to hire 2 new qualified teachers, a computer instructor and a sports coach to ensure that our girls get quality education. This year, we had 44 girls in boarding school and about 61 girls in day school. We are admitting 15 more girls in January 2018 as we expand to 6th grade. The girls have not done any national exams with other schools. Such exams will be done next year when they join sixth grade and start joint mocks at both the zone and district level. we will keep you posted. In the internal exams they sat for, 70% of the girls scored 350 marks out of possible 500 and this is a big improvement considering that most of the girls scored below 250 out 500 marks when they joined Akili School. We also introduced a number of enrichment programs to develop the girls into all round students. This is a break from the traditional rote memorization and over emphasis on exam based teaching. Such programs include computer skills training where all the Girls at the boarding school participate in and learn basic programming and coding, sustainability education which teaches the girls farming practices based on permaculture to grow enough food to sustain Akili School, sports program which teaches them team work, cooperation and build their self confidence, smart girl program which builds their self esteem by counseling and sanitary pads distribution to allow them go through their periods with dignity, debate club, literacy club among others. We have maintained our teacher to students ratio at 1:15 to allow one on one interaction of students and the teachers and improve quality of education at Akili School. High cost of living necessitated by drought really affected our operations. Maintaining the girls at the two campus proved quite a challenge. We look forward to continue to partner with you to raise the much needed funds to support our staff. Thank you Akili teachers and students
Posted by: David Omondi Watering gardens Dear Friends, “My school looks smart and it is big. First we have green vegetables and green trees in our school. We also have classroom block, kitchen and dorms. In our school we like watering the plants like mango trees and oranges. We drink clean water and bath with clean water. In our school we always use water carefully we don’t waste water like those who don’t use common sense." says Jovlet when asked about her school. Jovlet is 9 years old and in 4th grade, this being her 2nd year since she joined Akili Girls Boarding School. As a member of Sustain-Akility Club, Jovlet and her friends have learned how to grow their own food to sustain Akili School. With the help of Akili staff, the girls have reclaimed land from rocky ground at the school and established small garden plots where they grow capsicums, kale, spinach, common night shade, cow piece, tomatoes, beans, sweat potatoes, comfry, lemon grass, mangoes, papaya, oranges, zucchini and water melons. Last term, 100% of the vegetables used at Akili school were produced by the girls themselves. The water tanks at the school have ensured that we can harvest rain water which the girls use for drinking, bathing and watering their gardens. The about 50,000 litres we harvested and stored lasted us almost 3 months. We ran out of water one week to the end of school semester and were forced to close the school and send girls home since we dint have funds to purchase water to support extended stay of the girls. We were lucky hat the girls had just finished their end of term exams and the elections were also around the conner. We therefore continue to reach out to friends and wellwishers in the hope that one day we will be able to drill a well at the school and provide a permanet solution to our water crisis. We thank you for your continued support. Thank you Drawing water from the tanks Butter nut
Posted by: David Omondi Dear Friends,
I hope this finds you well. We want to thank each one of you who has donated to help pay our teachers. Together we have raised $290 for this project and we are very grateful. This year, it has become even harder for us to pay our teachers on time. There has been a high cost of living in the country with prices of maize meal, the staple food here retailing at an all time high price of $2.9 per 2kg packet. This has meant that we spend so much of the money we get from the few sponsors to feed the girls leaving none to pay the teachers. Without the teachers, our girls cannot learn. Your donation has given us hope that there are people out there who believe that qualified and well remunerated teachers are important for the success of our girls at school. For this, we thank you. We will continue to raise funds here and hope that more people like you will come up and help us raise enough to pay our teachers for even a year. Thank you so much for your support God bless you, David Posted by: David Omondi Dear Donors,
Akili Girls are back to school this week after a one-month holiday break. we are very happy to reunite with them again. Thanks to the torrential rains, all our water tanks are full to the brim and we have enough rain water to take us for the next three months. Thank you so much for helping us to purchase these water tanks. We are hopeful that we will raise funds to drill the well by the end of the year. We were also happy to meet Mike of GlobalGiving Org when he visited our project site in Kisumu and saw first hand the great work are doing. Thank you all for your support. God bless you Posted by: David Omondi Michael from Global Giving Org Visit Dear Donors, Because of your support, our girls successfully completed term 1 at Akili Boarding school. All the girls stayed in school all term and were provided with school uniforms, 3 meals a day and school supplies. We also hired a sports coach and our girls were able to actively participate in different sports including football and volleyball. The girls were mentored through our Smart Girls Program and we were very pleased to see their confidence and self-esteem soar as a result of participating in these programs. We also ensured that all those who are in need of sanitary pads received two packets each every month allowing them to go through their menses with dignity and keep them in school. We cant thank you all enough for partnering with us to make this possible and keep our wonderful girls in school. As schools reopen for a second term next week, we are excited to meet our girls again and continue to support them through education for yet another term. At the beginning of this month, we were happy to meet Mike from GlobalGiving who visited our project in Kisumu and highlighted to our team how we can effectively use GlobalGiving tools to be improve our work. Thank you for walking this journey with us, Girls with sanitary towels Sports Sustainakility program
** Guest post by Megan Sonier, Mama Hope Global Advocate at Akili Girls' Preparatory School. The beginning of April brings with it the end of the school term and the start of vacation for students throughout Kenya. Two weeks ago, we said goodbye to the Akili girls as they packed up their bags and headed home until classes resume in May. Parents had the option to pick up their child at any time from the Obambo Campus on the last Friday of the month. But, when I arrived to school that morning at 9 AM, I found that most parents were already there, embracing their girls with proud eyes and beaming smiles. A few girls expressed to me that they were sad to leave Akili - they love their teachers, friends, and school - but I know that they are also excited for a little break from academics and time with their families. The girls worked so hard this term, so they truly deserve some time to relax! Unfortunately for me, it is rather quiet at school these days with them gone. There is a lot less laughter and singing to keep me occupied as I work in the office. So, since I am currently missing them dearly, I want to rewind back to a happy memory from the days before the girls returned home. After the term exams had ended, the girls had the opportunity to take a field trip to the Kisumu Museum, home to a wide variety of educational exhibits on Western Kenyan heritage and culture. Teacher Annette, who helped to organize the trip, said it best, it was so much fun to "break from the dormancy of sitting in class and move our pupils to learn from reality." The girls, you could tell, appreciated this break from routine as well. Our first stop on our museum tour was a round room that was filled with glass cases displaying various aspects of traditional Luo culture, and the girls must have circled the exhibit three times each at least! They had studied most of this information in their social studies classes earlier in the term, but now, they could see with their own eyes and touch with their own hands what they had previously only seen in their textbooks. This ability to connect their lessons to real life outside of the classroom was an invaluable experience. Other exhibits in the museum included a display of indigenous trees and crops, an aquarium with live specimens from Lake Victoria, various animal habitats (the girls loved to see the crocodiles and snakes!), and a Luo homestead that was complete with historical actors dressed in traditional clothes, reenacting what life was like in Kisumu County many year ago. At the end of our tour, we were given a send-off by a group of traditional Luo dancers who performed for us a few songs and dances. They even got the girls up off their feet and taught them a few moves! I thought that I could quietly watch from the back of the crowd, but a few of the teachers were quick to pull me up into the middle of the performance and get me dancing as well. Teacher Annette claims that I was accorded the best dancer of the day, but the laughter from the girls tells me otherwise. They promised that they would give me some lessons. They day ended with a picnic lunch and lots of playtime in the park. On the way to the museum, the girls sang for the entire duration of the road trip, but on the way back, not a soul made a noise as they all slept, tired from all of the learning that was done that day. The Akili Girls' Preparatory School is a magical place, but it is important that the girls get the opportunity to leave campus in order to learn through experience. On this field trip, I was surrounded by confident girls who were eager to answer any question asked to them by our guides. I was able to witness an unbounded curiosity and an intense desire to learn in each and every one of the Akili girls.
They showed to me today, and to the world, that they are not just receiving an education at Akili, but they are also being instilled with pride, self-worth, and passion, that is leading them to engage with the world around them in a productive and positive way. |
Riley Orton FoundationRiley Orton Foundation (ROF) provides holistic education and promotes gender equality in STEM education to ensure girls and a community with the agency to realize their full potential Archives
April 2024
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