Construction of New School Facilities in Bumala, Kenya

It has been many months since the last time we have written everyone about the Mercy Centre schools in Nairobi and Bumala Kenya. In the meantime we Fultons have moved - Lew and Lili back to Paris and Sadie off to University in Belfast. But the Mercy Centre has also been moving - building a new school facility in Bumala and moving the kids to it in October after a very efficient 2 month construction project. We are very excited to announce the completion of this "Phase I" construction effort and describe the new facilities and plans.

During the months of August, Sept. and Oct., Charles Oduor and Pius Likami directed the construction of a schoolhouse, office, and latrine facilities for our students in Bumala in Western Kenya. On our two acre plot of land, purchased in June 2007, and thanks primarily to funding from One Child's Village, we have been able to build a five-room school house and a sanitary latrine outhouse. The Bumala students were moved from their temporary (rental) classrooms in Bumala town into the new facility on the outskirts of town on October 8. New desks, chairs and other equipment were also provided for this "grand opening" by One Child's Village.

Construction was challenging but by keeping things fairly simple and using traditional building designs and approaches, we were able to construct the main building fairly quickly and at fairly low cost (about $12,000). We all helped develop the blueprint, with assistance from a Canadian architect, and Charles and Pius hired local builders, suppliers and laborers. In August, Lew, Terry and Terry's friend from St. Andrews, Katherine Kemp, all got the opportunity to go out to Bumala and help with the work in progress - hammer a few nails, help dig a trench, etc.

As shown in the accompanying photos, The classrooms are quite large (all about 24 x 28 feet or 7.5 x 9 metres), large enough to comfortably accommodate classes of up to 40 children (though current class sizes are smaller, around 25-30). The central room provides a school office, with an outer office and 2 smaller closed offices for the Head Master and Assistant.

The floors are sand mixed with mud and cement, with a smooth surface layer. The walls are built up with a timber frame and then mud/cement around this, providing good strength and insulation. The roof is timber frame with metal sheeting, again, a typical style of construction in western Kenya.

The students seem very pleased to be at the new facility with plenty of space to run around and a sense of pride in their new facilities. Now they have space and security to finally provide a milk cow and some chickens as well with the money we have already collected.

We will now begin to raise funding to start a second phase of construction, including a proper kitchen and dining/assembly hall, and a guest house for visitors (including, hopefully, volunteer teachers from around the world!). An electrical hookup, converter, and basic lighting system is not too expensive (around $1500) and an obvious priority. A well or bore hole has proven too expensive so for now we are planning to add a rainwater collection system as we have in Kawangware, and supplement this with purchased drinking water as needed.

We have planted several fruit trees and welcome contributions toward more self-sufficiency purchases. For example, once there is an assembly hall, we hope to provide a video projection system so that the school can have movie nights for the community at a small admission fee.

Meanwhile, at the Kawangware Mercy Centre school in Nairobi, the students continue to thrive and work hard. January will start a new school year (at both schools) and we hope to be able to expand by one class level, moving all the existing classes up one level and entering a new "baby" class. If we can keep expanding the funding base, we hope to be able to help the oldest kids eventually make it all they way through Form 4 (equivalent to grade 12 for our North American friends). We also hope to move some of the Kawangware kids out to the healthier environment of Bumala, in cases where they will be essentially going home, since many of them moved (or were moved) to Nairobi from that part of Kenya in the first place. But one step at a time.

We now hope to gain significant new contributions and funding from our friends and patrons. Priorities are described on the next page.

Best regards,

Lew and Lili Fulton

Needs for new funding for the Mercy Centre Schools

At this time we are welcoming donations either to contribute to on-going construction (though we hope to get another generous grant from One Child's Village to go pay for much of the next construction phase) and also donations to help continue to pay for school lunches, school supplies and uniforms for the next school year, and to begin to provide the teachers with better salaries. The teachers are provided a small salary when possible, though it has not been possible every month, and it is not very much. The Kawangware school has experimented with enrolling some students who are not orphans at a modest monthly fee to help pay teacher salaries, but this has had mixed results and we may not push it much further.

The best contributions now would be those that one could call "subscriptions", i.e. something like a commitment to help pay for, for example, the salary of one teacher for a year (hopefully to be renewed in future years), or to pay for daily lunches for x number of children, again for a year or more (a one-time payment could be held and allocated over the course of the year).

Subscriptions could be made as follows:

• 1 teacher for a year: $600 (KSH 3000/mo x 12 months = 36,000; this sounds low but would be a vast improvement over what they are used to)
• 1 student lunch for a year = $65 (KSH 20/day * 200 school days/year = 4000)
• 1 student outfit per year = $50 (approximately)

A one time gift is also always useful and appreciated:

• A rain water collection system for Bumala would cost about $1000
• The cost of an electricity generation hook-up with converter would be about $1500
• Any amount that can be put with other contributions toward these types of purchases