Update from MAD HQ: Ngecho Primary School

Ngecho primary school has 252 children in attendance, and is situated on the road between Gilgil and Nyharuru in the base of the Rift Valley.The school was a run down mixture of old wooden and temporary buildings. The school faced increasing overcrowding issues and the poor facilities were not only detrimental to educational achievement but were potentially dangerous.

The objective of this project was to build a new two class block, which accommodates the growing amount of pupils attending the school, and replaces the temporary buildings. Whilst this is a government run primary school, the government pledged only to provide free primary education teachers for the school.

With the average Kenyan wage of one to two dollars a day, most communities find it difficult to find the funds needed to repair schools and build further facilities which are necessary for a standard learning environment. In this area especially, where agriculture is very difficult due to lack of rainfall, communities must rely on a few cattle to fund an entire family. This makes funding anything other than daily life for a family impossible. Without intervention the school was to only get more and more run down.

The structures so far were almost unusable, and are a threat to the children, just last year the roof came off one of the classes while the children were in it. This project was a three phase project to build a new two class block from scratch.