2009 High School Classroom for Village of Githima, Kenya  

Overview
Project Name: Mureru Secondary School Classroom Project
NGO Partner: Sustainable Environment And Agriculture Network
Project Cost: $15,784.3
Target Start Date: March 2009
Target Completion Date: July 2009
ODFL Partner Schools:

• North Kansas City High, MO
• Winnetonka High, MO
• Olathe Northwest High, KS
• additional schools needed!

Background
Mureru secondary school is on the western side of Mount Kenya. The inhabitants are agro- pastoralists and where water for irrigation is available, some horticultural crops like cabbages, kales and tomatoes are grown. It is a precarious existence, with 50% of the people earning less than US $1 per day. Rains are insufficient for a healthy crop, so a good harvest is usually only achieved in three out of every five years.

The Proposed High School in the Village of Githima
Mureru Secondary School is located within a former ranch which has since been sold and subdivided into plots of about two to six acres each. The children going to this school are attempting to break away from an old poverty vicious cycle that has throughout entrapped their parents. It has a population of 207 students, 97 girls and 110 boys. ODFL, working with the Sustainable Environment and Agriculture Network (SEANet) in the summer of 2009, built a new secondary school classroom for 45 freshmen students who currently use an earthen floor and porous timber-walled classroom.

Since the country has few resources, if families want more education for their children, they must pay for it themselves. But poor parents cannot afford such costs so many students end their education at sixth grade, going to work in the fields or drifting into the cities in hopes of finding work.

The Mureru secondary school project took 80 days to complete from start to finish. It cost $19,300, with ODFL contributing $15,700. Local community members contributed the difference as well as the labor to keep the cost of the school within budget. The classroom is a 25’ by 25’ stone walled building, similar to the ones ODFL and SEANet built in nearby Naromoru in the spring of 2007 and Tiamu in the winter of 2009.

Construction Photos - May 2009

ODFL hopes high schools in the U.S. will help with funding these kinds of most worthy projects. If students give only one dollar, we can provide generations of educational opportunity for teenagers who otherwise would have nothing. In the process, we will make American students bigger people.

Bigger People. Better World. That is ODFL. Thank you for your support of our vision!

Yours in a Better World,
ODFL

Update Letter - May, 2009