Hi, I am Hendrik, a German volunteer teaching English and Social Studies in Tania Integrated School. The privately run Primary School is situated in the Ngong Hills, but despite the picturesque landscape life in Tania is far from being carefree.

Many of the children between the age of three and sixteen are deaf and dumb, some are also physically challenged. Since their parents mostly can’t afford the school fees, the institution relies on regular donations in order to provide the pupils with food and shelter.

As a teacher I find it rather challenging to handle a class with so little educational background, as the majority of the children are among the first generation in their Maasai community ever to attend school.

Kate

Kate taking part in a Nairobi Marathon

My name is Kathrin Schäfer and I am staying one year here in Kenya to do a voluntary service. i am working in a primary school called "Ereteti primary school" near Kiserian in Masaailand.

During that time I am staying at a Masaai family who lives next to school. Ereteti primary school has more than 400 pupils from Pre-School to Std. 8.

Many of them have to walk more than 15 km every day only to come to school. The school starts at 8 in the morning and ends at 4 in the afternoon, unfortunately the school can not offer food for the pupils, because they get northing from the government, so many of them get nothing to eat during the time they spend in school.

I am working as an assitant teacher and assist the teacher in teaching, marking and prepare the lessons.

Hey, my name is Max. I am a volunteer from Germany and I´m here to work in the Dagoretti Corner Primary School Nairobi for one year. I was chosen to teach English in class 7. My duties are also to mentor the children, to look after them in the breaks and to help the headteacher to manage the school and the school finances.

All children attending this school come from poor families most of them living in the slums and partly have school journey of more than 6 kilometres to walk every day. With this facts the major Problem comes up – money.

The school is financed in two different ways, the teachers are paid by a swedish school which collects money to pay them, but you have to know that those teachers are not as educated as they should be.

The other cost like those for teaching materials, maintenance and repair, and others used to be covered by the school fees which could only be paid by 55 % of the students. Hence you can see the school building is in bad conditions which is shown by water coming into some classes in the rainy seasons, also there is a lack of chulk throughout the year.

Furthermore there are not enough benches for all students, so that three or four students have to use benches meant for two person. Those school and their children are very needy in spite of their heartwarming smile.

My name is Rico Böhm and I'm doing a voluntary service in Kenya. This voluntary service is part of the "weltwaerts-Programm" which was founded and is supported by the german government.

I work in Nairobi at "Mama Ngina Kenyatta Childrens Home", which is part of "Child Welfare Society of Kenya" and will stay here for a whole year.

This Childrens Home has a capacity of 80 children and runs several programs to support them.

Most of the time I stay at the nursery and help to feed and dress the babys, but it's also part of my work to help in the kitchen or to assist students trying to teach the children, which are too small for primary school.

One of the Homes problems is, that it is hard for them to find donaters to pay the childrens school fees, so it can't afford to send also the smallest kids to pre-school, even if that means, that the chances of these children to have a good start in school are highly decreased.

Hi, my name is Steven. I am from Germany and I came to Kenya to work as a volunteer in a project for one year.

I found my place up in the Ngong Hills, where a boarding / primary school called Tania Integrated Rehabilitation Centre is settled, giving home and education to approximately 120 children, many of whom are physically impaired, struggling with the challenge of being deaf or mute or even both.

Communication often needs to be done via sign language, which every one of the also voluntarily working teachers managed to learn in order to able to care for the children properly. The school consists of a whole complex of building including dormitories, class rooms, sanitary but also greenhouses and cow stalls. A major point of the principles being hold upright by the project managers, also being my host family, is to achieve a sustainable development for the school.

The few and limited donations that the project is depending on are directly spent for the growing costs, raised not only by the need of food and school materials for the students, but also by high water and electricity bills due to required use a water pump.

Any money that my eventually be left from the everyday sale of homegrown tomatoes is a precious possibility for the school to invest in something new benefiting the wealth of the children.