Kenya trip
During the Michaelmas half-term break seventeen Eastbourne College girls and three members of staff visited Nakuru in Kenya for ten days. Whilst there the group worked with two different school-based projects: Ronaken and Love for All. Both schools are located in the slums of Nakuru and work to support the most vulnerable children, many of whom may live on the street or who are orphans.
Love for All is an orphanage and a school and at present is home to 65 orphans – all of whom board at the school. During the visit College pupils undertook a tremendous amount of hard work teaching lessons to the children that they had prepared themselves – often with more than 30 pupils in a class. They also helped feed the children – cooking porridge in the mornings and rice and beans for lunch. Even learning how to roll and cookchapati for a celebratory meal!
They threw themselves energetically into a number of challenging building and renovation tasks, including taking up a concrete floor by hand which was extremely hard and challenging work without the aid of a pneumatic drill. They cleared away the debris, re-leveled the floor and re-rendered the outside of the school building which was followed by an excellent painting job.
They also visited some of the homes of the children who attended the schools and took care packages as offerings. It was an eye-opening experience to see how many people live in a single room and how they make the best possible use of the limited space. The group took several bags of old Eastbourne College kit that had been kindly donated by the School Shop and each child in the school was given a piece of clothing. They were absolutely thrilled with our donations.
After a great deal of hard work there was some time for relaxation. During the weekend, the girls and staff members went on safari in the Nakuru National Park and saw lions, zebras, rhinos and giraffe. They also visited the equator and completed a science experiment in both the northern and southern hemispheres.
On Sunday, they visited a local church and were lucky enough to go to attend a beautiful gospel service filled with joyful singing and dancing. On their return to Nairobi they found time to visit an elephant orphanage and a giraffe sanctuary, where they fed the giraffe.
The whole trip was an incredible experience. The girls worked very hard and made an incredible difference to the lives of the children they met. Everyone who took part felt as though they were a million miles away from home and it was indeed a trip of a lifetime.
