A Cheshire-based charity set up to support a school in a poor rural area of eastern Kenya is launching a £10,500 fund-raising campaign aimed at encouraging more girls to stay on in education.
Under The Mango Tree first began working with Timboni School, located about 30kms north of Mombasa, in 2012 after a party of friends from the Northwich area visited the village during a trip to Kenya.
According to the charity’s co-founder and chair Gordon Atkinson, of Witton Park, Northwich:
“We were so impressed by the community’s efforts to provide the next generation with an education, and by the children’s willingness to walk long distances, often without food, to keep up with their lessons that we decided to help.”
Since then, the charity has added three new classrooms and a staff workroom; refurbished the kitchen and created a playing field as well as providing the pupils with books, desks, meals and mosquito nets. It plans to continue with its core support throughout 2019 but the next major goal is to replace the “unhygienic, unpleasant” toilets currently in use for girls at the school.
Gordon Atkinson explains:
“There’s an abundance of evidence and international reports showing that encouraging girls in remote rural areas like the one around Timboni to stay on in school benefits the health and well-being of the whole community, not just the individual. At present the only toilet facilities for older girls and women teachers are unhygienic, unpleasant, a cause of lost school days and, it’s believed, a reason why some older girls give up on school completely. So our big project for 2019 is to raise £10,500 to build cleaner, more welcoming and properly equipped toilet space.”
Under The Mango Tree has already raised around £2,000 towards the costs of the project but is now launching a quest to find the balance via applications to national and international funding bodies and an appeal to other Cheshire individuals and organisations.
Gordon Atkinson, along with all the charity trustees, promises that 100% of any donations will go directly to supporting the school which currently has about 300 pupils, aged from four to 17.
He and other Cheshire supporters of the charity welcome opportunities to give talks about Under The Mango Tree’s work in Kenya. To discuss availability, get in touch by emailing utmtcharity@gmail.com
Donations of any size are also welcome and can be made by visiting https://mydonate.bt.com/events/toilets/479246