About the school

In the summer of 2023, I visited The Nkasioki Primary School in the Olooriri Village of Kenya to meet the students and see first hand the many challenges the students and teachers face in this school. The school is located in a remote Maasai Village and  offers education from grade 1 to grade 8.

During the visit, I met the head teacher who explained to me in detail the various roadblocks the school encounters as a result of lack of basic infrastructure. Despite the several challenges, the headmaster and teachers are trying their best to provide much needed education to these children who attend from several remote Masai villages. The head master explained to us that motto of the school is "Tenacious and Resilience". Additionally, the smile and positive energy among these kids was mesmerizing. I brought two soccer balls for these kids and they were elated to play with a real ball as they used paper balls in the past to play soccer.

After this visit, I decided to dedicate my time and effort to support this school to provide a positive learning experience for all the children and to make the job of the teachers a little easier.

Among, the several challenges, one major problem the school faces is food hunger in the children which is affecting them to not attend school. I learned that sometimes, when kids are starving for a day or two, they are too hungry to even attend school which causes them to not get the education that they need for the future. However, with the solution of a porridge program (cost is $2700/year), it will be enough money to provide each kid with a meal of porridge every day and it can last for a year. Not only will it battle the problem of food hunger, but it will also motivate the kids to attend school to get their important education. So, it is a win-win situation if we are able to support this school with a porridge program.

 Another challenge of the school is insufficient water. The Nkasioki Primary School has two water tanks – one of the tanks cannot store any water in it as it is badly damaged, and the other tank is good with a 5,000 liters capacity though it is empty and has no water in it. If we can provide the school with a new 10,000-liter tank and refill the existing 5,000-liter tank, the water is enough to sustain the kids for a term. The cost of refilling the current 5,000-liter tank and getting a new 10,000-liter tank is approximately $1400 and costs about 300$/term to fill the water tanks with clean drinking water.

There are a total eight classrooms in the school serving each grade level.  I visited multiple classrooms at different grade level. Out of eight, only three class rooms had basic infrastructure. Others are equivalent to make shift rooms with broken floors, tin roofs and not conducive for healthy education. The classrooms were overcrowded with not enough benches to seat all the students. I interacted with some of the children. I found that similar to us (kids in USA), these children also have big dreams. Some children aspire to become teachers, doctors and want to serve their community. I also quizzed these children with appropriate questions for their grade level and found that these kids despite such limited facilities were very enthusiastic, able to comprehend and answered all my questions.

In addition, the school has only one bathroom that is in horrible condition which is shared and used by everyone (all genders and ages) in the school. There is about 300 students and 20 teachers in the school so sharing this bathroom is a severe problem with long queues and no privacy. If we can provide this school with new gender-neutral bathrooms, then it can significantly improve the sanitary hygiene and safety in the school.

These are some of the major problems that the Nkasioki Primary School has to face. With very limited resources, the head teacher is able to do as much as he can to make the school have a positive learning experience to everyone. The rural kids of the Nkasioki Primary School deserve better future and would greatly appreciate it if you could donate for these causes such that we can support the kids with a new porridge program, well-conditioned full water tanks, and with gender neutral bathrooms.