The Stewart Geddes Early Childhood Development School
Osiri Village, Kenya
The S.P. Geddes Early Childhood Development school at Osiri Village is a very small elementary school that is located in a fishing village along the shore of Homa Bay. It is in a very neglected part of Nyanza Province in Kenya.
The village served by this school is on the shore of Lake Victoria. The "road" to the community becomes more Iike a pathway before one reaches the school. There are about 200 people in the community. The nearest school is about 5 km away. The community is very poor, relying on fishing for income. The combination of reliance on one commodity for livelihood, the depleting fish stocks in Lake Victoria and the unexplained decline in price for Nile perch by about 35% has significantly hurt the economics of the village.
The community was concerned that their very young children were not able to access any education close to the village. The nearest school is too far for the preschool clidren and those in the early classes to walk each day.
The community built a very rudimentary school building with three small rooms with dirt floors and corrogated iron walls. In 2012 there were about sixty children now attending the school with three volunteer teachers, paid a meagre allowance by the community members. With new classrooms and other assistance from CanAssist, this enrolment has doubled.
The community built a very rudimentary school building with three small rooms with dirt floors and corrogated iron walls. In 2012 there were about sixty children now attending the school with three volunteer teachers, paid a meagre allowance by the community members. With new classrooms and other assistance from CanAssist, this enrolment has doubled.
The plight of these young children and the motivation of the community members to attempt to provide accessible learning for them touched a London Ontario senior who decided to help them. In 2011 Stewart Geddes, through CanAssist, supported fencing of the schoolyard and construction of latrines for the school - the only latrines in the community. In 2012, his gift to the school funded construction of two classrooms. The community is moved by his generosity to them. They have decided that they would like to name their community school "The Stewart Geddes School".
In 2015/16 CanAssist will fund construction of two more classrooms at this school which now has about 150 children attending from preschool up to Class 5. A Canadian family is also providing one nourishing lunch a week to the children at this school, many of whom come to school hungry some of the time. We have had a happy association with this school and the Kamin Oningo community.
If you would like to help educate these children, please indicate with your gift to CanAssist that you would like it to support the Stewart Geddes School.